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Richard Stallman's Political Notes

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Carrying "social distancing" to extremes

lundi 30 mars 2020 à 02:00

Doctors disagree about carrying "social distancing" to extremes.

It is always the case, for any kind of risk, that there are bigger risks and smaller ones. A rational plan to reduce the total risk to some target level involves trying hard to avoid the bigger risks, while accepting occasional smaller risks. The lower the target level, the more you'll reject risks of any given size, but it will always be rational for you to accept small risks occasionally.

To put it another way, if you choose to ride in a car or bus, you're accepting some small amount of collision risk. It is not rational to take, for Covid-19 risk, the attitude that "any risk whatsoever is too much", while ignoring small risks of collision.