Let’s Apply the Drunk Driving Argument to This Pandemic Pool Party

Take a look at this crowded bar Memorial Day weekend at Lake of the Ozarks.

I’m going to assume that most of the people in this picture are drinking. I’m also going to assume that some of the people in this picture will leave this party intoxicated yet believe they’re ok to drive. I’m going to assume every single person in this picture arrived home safely.

What would your conclusion be if all the above were true? Would you conclude that because none of the intoxicated people in this crowd got into a car wreck afterward, that drunk driving is ok? Would you think that maybe we don’t need laws forbidding drunk driving? Or, would you conclude that the intoxicated drivers were damned lucky, because intoxicated driving clearly increases your chances of causing an accident and killing yourself and others?

Here’s another possible outcome: One of the men driving home was pretty hammered. After getting onto the highway, he realized that he shouldn’t be driving. He kept losing his focus and had some trouble staying in his lane. When he arrived home, he breathed a sigh of relief. No harm, no foul.  Unbeknownst to this man, a woman driving in the lane next to him on the highway was trying to get home from her shift at the hospital. She was a nurse tired from another long day. When his car drifted over into her lane, she was forced to swerve, causing her car to roll down an embankment. She is severely injured and may not survive.

The man who is breathing a sigh of relief that he got home safely, he has no idea what his actions caused. He may never know.

Now let’s look at this picture again, knowing this photo was taken during the pandemic. It’s entirely possible that everyone left this bar feeling good and that all of them continue living a healthy happy life. It’s quite possible, however, that two or three of these people at the bar were infected but had no symptoms. It’s also entirely possible that one of these asymptomatic people talked to three other women while waiting in line in the crowded ladies’ room. As they laugh about the goofy bartender, some infected droplets spray from her mouth and onto the others. After they go home, two of them get sick. Before one of them had symptoms, she visited her elderly mother a few days later. Her mother ended up on a ventilator and died a week later.

I keep hearing, “everyone is going to die of something.” That’s 100% true. A lot of people die in car accidents, with or without intoxication involved.

But the reason we enact laws for public safety is to reduce the risk of harming or killing other people. Wearing a mask in public during a pandemic is as practical and important as NOT drinking and driving, or taking the keys away from someone who drank too much.

Wearing a mask in public is like taking the car keys away from someone who drank too much.
There’s an even more compelling reason to social distance and wear a mask. The man who got home safely, may wake up the next morning and recognize how lucky he is. He may vow to never again drink and drive. Should that happen, he will never have or cause a wreck due to intoxication.

The woman who unknowingly passed the virus to the ladies in the restroom may see how quickly it’s spreading in her community and decide she’s now going to be more careful. She vows to keep a social distance, wear a mask in public, and do what she can to keep others safe. Even if she does that starting now, the people she infected last night can continue spreading the virus, exponentially. The two people she infected can spread it to four, and those four can spread it to eight and so on.

So why would we intervene to prevent death by drunk driving but not intervene to prevent death by social distancing and wearing masks in public? https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812864  In 2019, “only” about 10,000 people died as a result of drunk driving, but most of us feel compelled to strictly enforce the law to prevent those needless deaths. No one complains about the government violating their constitutional rights by enacting drunk driving laws.

As I finish writing this article, ten times as many people, more than 100,000 people, have died as a result of COVID-19 in just few months, with many other people barely hanging on. It’s far more deadly than drunk driving.

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The above video is on Snapchat in the Lake of the Ozarks? Unreal. What are we doing?

pic.twitter.com/m0qsEQ4KLp

— Max Baker (@maxbaker_15) May 24, 2020

Continue ReadingLet’s Apply the Drunk Driving Argument to This Pandemic Pool Party

Contemplating the COVID-19 Pool Party at Lake of the Ozarks

This image of the COVID-19 era pool party in Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks is deservedly viral.These are stunning and disturbing images for me.

I'm struggling to get inside of the heads of these people. Are they extroverts suffering from living in isolation? Are they simply in denial of the danger? Are they innumerate, not appreciating the meaning of exponential? Are they succumbing to incessant pressures of their in-group. to conform. Are they doing expensive signaling to impress each other? Have they attempted any sort of moral calculus in their minds, or have they simply declared themselves to be mini-Fiefdoms, self-legislating that it's time to move on, the consequences be damned? I'm working hard to pull myself out of any Manichean matrix that might tempt me to see the world in terms of "good" people and "bad" people.

I prefer to think of these people are ordinary flawed people, just like the rest of us, except that they are making a bad decision here.

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COVID-19 Pulls Back the Curtain on Who We Are

"Feb. 29, 2020: 1st death reported in United States." OK, I'll use that date as my start date.

Today is Day 87 of COVID-19 here in the U.S., and it is bringing out the best and the worst of Americans. Behold who we are!

On average, it appears that we are responding to COVID-19 with the same degree of care that we display when we A) drive our cars, B) take care of our bodies C) nurture the environment and D) fill our brains with TV shows. Why would we expect anything different?

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Central Park Confrontation Provokes Thoughts on Adequate Apologies

Hmmm. How would I grade these two actors?

I'd give Mr. Christian Cooper, dedicated birder, an A+. I'd give Ms. Amy Cooper (no relation), an entitled, leash-ordinance-violating, racist, hostile, COVID-endangering financial analyst, an F. It's not fun to see anyone fall so far and so hard, but I was relieved that Mr. Cooper kept his cool and kept the recording rolling to protect himself. The world now knows exactly what happened that day in Central Park. There are many good safety reasons people should keep their dogs on leashes. It's too bad that Mr. Cooper had to ask Ms. Cooper to obey the law.

Reading this article is making me think of what makes for an adequate apology. When are mere words enough?  It seems like we need some expensive signaling here, something much more than words.

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Our Sphere-Shaped Petri Dish, Courtesy of COVID-19

I find myself repeatedly contemplating the potentially vast predictive power of Terror Management Theory in light of this cold blast of mortality salience related to COVID-19. This is the biggest flare-up of mortality salience since 9/11 and much of the resulting frenzied societal dysfunction was foreseeable, including the fact that so many modern-day tribes are so vigorously circling their wagons.

COVID-19 is a such terrible thing to grapple with. Many of the people we care about are going to be hurt, physically and economically. We are particularly taunted by COVID's invisibility because, as a species, we rely so heavily on brain systems related to vision. That said, we human animals are now living in a huge sphere-shaped petri dish. It's difficult to imagine the huge number of dissertations and research papers that will result from this upheaval. My speculative hope is that as a result of this pandemic we will learn something critically important about how to get along with each other. Whatever we learn, we need to learn it both in our hearts and our minds. We so desperately need some sort of reboot down here on Planet Earth.

Continue ReadingOur Sphere-Shaped Petri Dish, Courtesy of COVID-19