 article by, you know, somebody who was awfully anti, anti, you know, anti-opening up. This is somebody on the left who's against opening up, and he has, and he wrote an article in Medium, his name is Tim Weiss, and he wrote an article in Medium called, 10 questions for those opposed to lockdowns. 10 questions to those opposed to lockdowns, and I found the questions interesting, revealing, philosophically, economically, politically, ideologically, philosophically revealing of a certain mentality, and therefore I thought it would be interesting to go over and consider kind of my answer, which is not going to be the answer, of most people who are for opening up. So, these are my answers, kind of an objectivist's answers to 10 questions for those opposed to lock up. Okay, so here's the first one, and they're long questions, detailed questions, and offer a same perspective, and see if you can identify what the perspective is, what is the fundamental flaw in the way he is asking these questions. So the first one is this, if businesses are opened up, should customers, patrons, and employees be required to follow social distancing and safety guidelines for at least the next few months? Or should decisions about masking, spatial distancing, seating, and or standing capability capacity be made by each individual or business owner as they see fit? Now, that is a great question in a mixed economy, because almost everybody is going to answer, oh no, no, they should be required to follow social distancing requirements, safety guidelines, because after all, we don't allow people to smoke in restaurants. We regulate restaurants in a million and stores and everything else and human behavior generally in a million different things in order to protect individuals from themselves. We don't allow people to choose for themselves, anything. So why would the coronavirus be any different? So I think many people on the right would actually argue for opening up, but regulating it, but controlling it. And if they're not, if they're not, then they're hypocrites. Then are they going to allow restaurants to make this choice? Are businesses to make this choice? They'll get to that point in a second. So my answer to this is, of course, it shouldn't be dictated by the government. Of course, this is a decision that should be left to business owners and to customers. And if customers don't like the social distancing rules established by the business, they don't have to go there. They don't have to go there. It is the business that should determine what kind of, whether you should wear a mask or not, whether you should, what the distance should be from page to page. And some businesses are going to be more conservative than the government. Some businesses are going to be less conservative than the government. Some businesses might be completely irresponsible. And then it's the job of, if you will, the job of customers to regulate the businesses by saying, oh, you're going to be irresponsible. We're not going to come. We're just not going to show up. So I'm for liberty. I'm for freedom. Businesses and customers should make these decisions. Now, note that underlying this question is an assumption that says people cannot make decisions for themselves. They're not rational enough. They're not responsible enough. And you need a government. You need a central planet to tell them how to behave. What to do? That's underlying this. And you'll see that throughout. Okay. So that's question number one, is I leave it to businesses and customers and let businesses and customers deal with it as they will. And I encourage people, I would encourage people to be rational. This is a real disease. Some people are super vulnerable to it. Others, not so much. You know, somebody told me this today. True fact, statistical fact. It is just as likely in Pennsylvania for somebody 40 or younger to die from coronavirus. And it is as it is. So if just to look at the distribution of people or die, but as many people who've died of coronavirus under the age of 40, as they are over the age of 100. Now, the population of people over 40 is much larger than the population of people over 100. And yet, and yet, it's the number of people died over 100 is the same as the number of people died under 40. This is a disease of old age. I've said this all along. I've been talking about this for two and a half months. And they are the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable group is the group that typically doesn't go to work. That typically, you know, that certain subsection of them doesn't go out that much either. They're less likely to be in restaurants. They're less likely to be in shops. And then you have to decide based on facts how risky it is for everybody else. But people don't want to hear that. If masking and distancing are left to obtain individuals and business owners, how do we deal with situations where some patrons go to a bar restaurant or customers go to a store or employees go to their workplace and are trying to be careful about contact with others, sanitizing, keeping distance, etc. But others are exercising their freedom, not to ask, sanitize, or worry about such things. Then he asks, is the burden on the concerned individuals to leave or quit their jobs in deference to the freedoms of the unconcerned? If so, isn't this tant amount to saying that the rights of people who are cavalier about public health and endangering others should outweigh the rights of others not to be endangered? You don't... No, it's not tant amount to saying that. It's tant amount to saying we all have the right to decide on our risk tolerance. We all have the right to decide what level of cautiousness we are going to exercise. And if it's an environment where we feel uncomfortable because we think the risk is too high, then we leave. And look, I don't know what your risk tolerance is. I don't know whether you have pre-existing conditions. I might be able to tell how old you are, but not more than that. You need to be responsible for your life. Now, again, the assumption here is that I think that most individuals that are responsible, most individuals don't care. Most individuals are going to spread their viruses all over the place. And that the few responsible, rational, data-driven people are going to be unsafe and are going to be threatened by all of this. Now, again, take into account the fact that this coronavirus is not a big threat to anybody under the age of 40 and really to anybody under the age of 65 or 60 or something around there. This is not a big deal unless you're old and unless you have some significant pre-existing conditions. And even there, if you're young and healthy, otherwise it's less of a risk. So people have the freedom to live. People have the freedom to make decisions for themselves. Most people, I believe, are going to be responsible, are going to be careful, don't want to inflict their fellow man. And I think it's moral not to want to inflict other people with potential risk and potential virus. And therefore, you keep them away. Now, again, by the way, if you test and isolate, then you exclude from society those people who are clearly risk, you know, inflicting risk on others. But most people don't have this disease. And therefore most people's behavior is not a risk to other people. They are not endangering anybody. 95 to 99% of the people out there don't have coronavirus and therefore are not endangering others. So why penalizing those who are not endangering for the sake of those who are risk averse? Instead of having those who are risk averse, find ways in which to live their lives without taking on too much risk. We all have different risk preferences. So instead of setting policy based on the weakest, based on the most needy, based on the most fearful, based on the most risk averse, let's set policy where we're all free to make our own choices about the level of risk we want to take and about our own behavior. Make sure to exclude those that have tested positive but let the rest of us live. Let the rest of us make choices about our own lives. What kind of risks we're willing to take and not willing to take. Imagine you're on a highway and suddenly everybody around you starts driving like maniacs. They zigzag. They speed. You see accidents happening. Just things are going crazy on the road. What do you do? Like let's say you're driving and suddenly you're in Italy and if you can't handle that, don't drive in Italy. Don't drive in Italy. I mean people drive like maniacs in Italy. Now I love it. I love it because I drive like an Italian, right? Look, yes, I mean suddenly if they're driving in ways that are clearly objectively risky to you, then that's what traffic laws are for and there would be traffic laws even in a completely private society because the people on the road would have an incentive to have traffic laws to encourage you to drive and this is the point about the business owners. If the people inside the business are clearly engaging in risky behavior and there are accidents that is people might have gotten infected in this business, then the business owner in order to encourage people to keep coming to the business has a strong incentive to rein in that behavior. Kick out the bad guys and keep the people who are not and encourage the people who are more responsible to it to come to the restaurant, right? So rules make sense if and when their behavior is clearly risky and the owner identifies as such. What I find interesting and here I'm going to go after conservatives for a minute. If conservatives believe supposedly property rights, if they believe the baker has a right not to bake a cake for a gay couple, then how can they object to Costco requiring them to wear a mask? It's Costco. It's a private business. Costco gets to set the rules of engagement. It gets to determine what kind of behavior is acceptable within their store and what kind of behavior is not acceptable within their store and yet conservatives are complaining right now because Costco is demanding that they wear masks because Costco is trying to be responsible. I keep going back and forth with regard to masks. I know Amesh Aduljah doesn't think masks really help in certain risks associated with wearing masks. I keep going back to Asia and I keep going back to Asia's success with this virus to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In Hong Kong, I just read an article about how most of the success was voluntary, was people's voluntary behavior. And if you think about one of the things that makes Asia different, one of the things that makes a difference is that they all wear masks. So I wonder if wearing masks does indeed really help in this case, particularly if you happen to have the disease and don't know it. And therefore if you cough and sneeze, you're coughing and sneezing into the mask and you don't let the particles out to everybody around you. So I actually, coming to believe that masks are very helpful in a society where everybody's wearing masks actually reduces the probability of this infection going crazy. And Costco is completely legitimate. It's their stores. So how can conservatives, how can people who claim to be pro-poperty rights, claim to be pro the right of the baker to bake or not to bake the cake, how can they be against Costco deciding whether you have a mask or don't have a mask? But that's on the right. So this is the left. So, yeah, I mean, the assumption that everybody's going to be responsible is, again, embedded into the question. The assumption that business owners are not going to be responsible is embedded into the question. And the assumption that we must sacrifice for the sake of the most risk of us, the most fearful, the most weak and needy, that's altruism, is at the base of that second question. Okay, here's the third question. If an employer decides they don't want employees to wear masks, what should employees with health conditions placing them in high-risk groups do? Should the employer be allowed to fire such employees if they refuse to come to work unmasked, even though they usually would not be able to do so because of health conditions such as these? Now, first, I believe employers should be able to fire you for anything. I believe employees should be able to quit for anything, unless there's a contract that specifies something else. So, yes, if the employer decides that in my business, in my restaurant, in my store, nobody wears masks, they should be able to fire you if you insist to wear a mask. That's, you know, now, how often would that happen? I don't know. But think about this too. This guy, Tim Weiss, who's writing this, believes that the lockdown should persist. So this person doesn't have a job anyway. This person who doesn't want to wear a mask and now he's being fired is right back to where he was when the lockdowns were happening. He doesn't have a job. The difference is that Tim doesn't want anybody to have a job, and Tim doesn't want any business to be open, and Tim doesn't want any business to be able to make choices about opening, about the kind of opening, about, you know, how to treat its customers and how to relate to customers. And Tim, I know, is on Facebook, can you, can you see video? If anybody's on Facebook and they've got, oh, there it is. Okay. I don't know if video's coming in and out, what exactly is going on. And Tim doesn't want customers to be able to access the stores. So Tim, in the name of the employee who might be fired because he's not willing to not wear a mask, wants to fire everybody, wants to destroy every business, wants to make us all dependent on the state, wants to cripple all of our lives, wants to make consumption almost impossible, wants to make shopping and go into restaurants and all those things. Impossible. Why? To protect this one employee, or 10 employees, or 100 employees, or a million employees, who want to wear masks in situations where their employer does not. Notice the altruism, it's all geared towards the weakest. Notice the complete disrespect for healthy individuals, the complete disrespect for businesses, the complete disrespect for employees who are willing not to wear a mask and who just want a job. Notice too, a lack of any understanding of economics with the idea that we can all not go to work, we can all stay home and receive checks from the government and that's somehow a solution to the problem. That lockdowns somehow solve anything. Well, they don't. Again, they might stop in the short run overwhelming the hospital system. But that's it. That's the only thing they're good for. There's certainly not a solution to these employees because the lockdowns, they don't have jobs. Alright question number four, if you advocate opening things up, what should the 45% Americans who fall into high-risk health categories do about their job if they still have them? Or old Americans who despite age are still in the workforce, should they be allowed to choose to remain sheltered in place and still be able to keep their jobs even if their boss wants them back at work? If not, doesn't that mean that even people in high-risk groups should be forced to go back to work and risk their lives? Well, right now, they're getting checks from the government. If they stay home, they'll continue to get checks from the government. There's such a thing as unemployment insurance. They would get that. Employers are completely legit and they have fired people who are not coming back to their work. Employers need to open up their businesses. They need to start working. Old Americans in high-risk categories need to talk to their doctors, assess the situation, talk to their employers, see if they can come to some kind of solution with the employers where they can go to work and stay safe. Or maybe the employer is willing, if they're high-valued employees, to keep their job for them while they self-isolate. But for how long? Until there's a vaccine? Is that six months? A year? Two years? Three years? Is the employer supposed to pay their wages for three years while these people are not working at all? Who is employed just to be sacrificed? Because somebody is needy, is in need? And I feel for these people, it's not that I'm dismissing their pain. This is a real problem. This is why, by the way, you should save. This is why you should have a nest egg. You should have some money put aside for times where something might happen and you don't have a job. And right now the government is paying them anyway. So, yeah. The 45% of Americans are going to have to figure it out. They're going to have to talk to their doctor, see how susceptible they really are, what the risks really are. Then they're going to have to go to their boss. And again, the assumption here is that employers, bosses, are jerks. Are a-holes who only care about they don't care if it's employee X or Y. They're all interchangeable. I just want somebody at work. But what if somebody is being loyal and a really good worker and you like them? Which is most employees. And what they're asking to is to wear a mask. Or what they're asking to is to be able to rest or whatever, you know, a certain ability to stay safe while working. Most bosses are going to say yes. Most business owners are going to say yes rather than have to train somebody in you and have to deal with all the problems of somebody in you. You're somebody I know. You're somebody I trust. You're somebody I trust. Again, the assumption is that human beings are in conflict. That human beings that businesses exploit their workers. That businesses exploit their customers. That they able exploit the weak. No. That's not how reality actually works. Certainly not in a benevolent society which I think we still live in to some extent at least. So what right do you have to shut down all businesses? Because you think some workers won't be able to go back to their jobs. So you're making all workers suffer. Again, notice the altruism. The altruism is here everywhere. Because some people at risk, nobody should go to work. Because some people at risk, no businessman should open their business. Because some people at risk nobody should be able to go shopping or go to restaurants. We should all suffer. Because some people are at risk. The need the need of the needy outweighs the rights of the individual. Question number 5. If you do think they should be able to retain employment, I don't. I.e. not be fired for staying at home. Should they receive paid leave during the time they are at home? From whom? Or if not paid leave should they be eligible to receive continued employment benefits or other government's assistance to make it through the crisis? They are. There's nothing preventing them from getting unemployment insurance or other government assistance. Of course, in my world there wouldn't be government assistance, but in my world there would be charities and there would be other mechanisms by which they could support themselves. Including their own savings. If you answer no to these questions, aren't you saying that rather than people being allowed to choose to gamble with their lives, sick people who are at significant risk of COVID should essentially be forced to do so or else risk financial ruin? Yes, I'm saying they should risk financial ruin. But you see, the flip side is the same thing. Flip the question. You're saying that because some people are at risk all business owners should face financial ruin. You're saying because some employees are at risk all employees should face financial ruin. Again, let's say it's even 45%, whatever. You're willing to sacrifice 55% for the 45%, but of course it's not 45%. Because not everybody is equally at risk. Some people have more risk than other people. And that is something only they can assess. Them and their doctor. But no matter what the number is you want to sacrifice, and this is pure Christian altruism, you want to sacrifice the able, healthy, the relatively prosperous, the successful, the young to the old, the sick, the weak, the vulnerable. How is that right? How is it right to inflict financial ruin on all these people? You're a real sadist. But again, you know, you just flip the argument on them. But they can get away with it. Because as soon as you say, but they need help. It engages the altruism and everybody succumbs. So Tim is very popular. All right, we continue. What should otherwise healthy people do if they have an immune compromised, immunocompromised child, spouse, partner, or other family member at home? Or family member with another serious health condition? They would place them at high risk should they be affected by this. Should they be allowed to remain at home? As with above question and receive unemployment benefits or other government assistance? They can now. What's the issue? Even though they are technically able to go to work and not at risk themselves. If you say no, then they should not be able to stay home and collect that benefits. If there is a job available, what would they do with their children or family members until the crisis passes? Send them to live with relatives, not interact with them for the next five or six months. Well, one thing they could do. Here's a solution. I mean, it's pretty radical and crazy solution. But here's one solution. They could test it. Now, imagine that the tests if they were allowed, could get really, really cheap and really, really plentiful. And you could get tested, you know, every day or once every three days based on what the doctor recommended. Once every three days to make sure you weren't contracting the disease. Now, we still don't know to what extent asymptomatic people are indeed infectious. There's some controversy about this. And it's not clear if you in the early days when you got the virus but still are not symptomatic if you actually are infectious. So, you know, if you test yourself twice a week, you know, and yes, that's an expense. And maybe maybe your health insurance would cover it. Given that you've got an immunocompromised child spouse path, not some other person. Or maybe, you know, maybe the certain charities would cover it. Or maybe you just pay it out of pocket because it's worth it to you because you're better off working and paying for the test and not working and being on government door. But again, same premise. Let's think of the outliers. Now, granted, there's a lot of people in this situation. But we are supposed to customize all of our lives. All the public policy to accommodate these people. Now, you could probably get unemployment benefits right now if you stayed home for these reasons. Now, again, I'm not for unemployment benefits. I'm not for government involvement in welfare and so on. Although, right now, what's the option? I don't believe in taking a well welfare as the first thing one would do in the movement towards freedom and liberty. There's a lot of other things you would have to do before that. But this is again a reason why you want to save in life. Where you want to put somebody aside even if you have to live at a lower standard of living for a while in order to facilitate that saving. This is why it's important to keep up with science and to keep up with the fact that if you wash your hands frequently, if you wear a mask if you try not to touch your face, not stick your hands in your mouth all day and if you get tested frequently, the fact is the fact is you're unlikely to infect somebody else. And if that somebody else in your household happens to be over 70 years old, then yes maybe you can send them to live with a relative maybe you can put them up in a hotel maybe you can put them in their room and ask them not to leave that room and make sure that you don't interact with them or you interact with them as little as feasible. But that seems reasonable to me rather than Tim's solution which is to stop all of our lives for the sake of this one family and even if it's a million families, for the sake of them everybody else needs to stop. Now, figure it out. Life is full of problems. Let's figure solutions out. Not as a collective, not from the top down but in your particular situation as a family, figure out how you can do this. But no, people are stupid. People are irrational. People aren't smart enough. People are poor. People don't have enough bargaining power. People always excuses you get from the left on why people are not capable of taking care of themselves, not capable of solving problems and why all of us must sacrifice for their sake. Now, I'm happy, for example, for family like that if they can't get tested enough I'm happy to donate money to get testing. Open up the economy and I'll donate. I'll pick up a family and I'll donate money to make sure that that family gets testing frequently so that they don't get sick. And I'm sure lots of people would be willing to do that. Maybe even this woman's I'm assuming it's a woman or a man or whatever maybe whoever this employee is maybe even their employer would be willing to pay for them to get tested so that they can come back to work. The extent to which these people hate the idea of people taking care of themselves, of people thinking for themselves, of people making decisions for themselves is stunning. And this is prevalent on the left and on the right on different issues. This is a leftist perspective but you get the same kind of attitude on certain issues on the right. If deaths from this virus were disproportionately occurring among younger otherwise healthy middle to upper middle class and white Americans would you still be cavalier about opening everything up and taking the risk associated with doing so. First of all, nobody is cavalier I certainly am not cavalier about it and yes although there's no question that if this was younger people healthy middle healthy people put aside middle class because that's just racism not racism that's just classism in what gets to the white Americans in a minute if it was younger otherwise healthy people suffering here this would be a much bigger problem, much bigger problem much bigger issue much scarier disease because the fact is that then you'd have to shut down the economy if young people are dropping dead how do you you wouldn't have to shut down the economy but how would the economy function if a significant proportion of young people were dying if the fact is that if the disease was hitting children our attitude would be very different because there's a difference and I know it's not PC to say it but there was a difference between a child dying and somebody 85 dying the 85 year old has lived his life a child does not and a child's death devastates his parents in a way that a parent's death is hard but they're 85 and you expect that death to happen sometime in the next 5 to 10 years anyway, a child is 85 years in front of him so you can't again this kind of egalitarianism all lives are the same no they're not no they are not now he says what if this hit middle and upper middle class ooh why would that make a difference and white Americans so this is the racism of the left the racism manifests itself in that they think everything is motivated by racism the racism manifests itself in that all they can think about is, I mean it's a kind of a moxist, a racist aspect all they can think about is classes all they can think about is how to sacrifice the able to the weak the able to the needy and all they can think about is ooh, what's the color of their skin ooh, what color is it rather than thinking about why is it that the disproportionate number of blacks are dying from this is it really their blackness that is causing them to die I mean maybe if you believe the stories about deficiency in vitamin D, blacks tend to be more deficient in vitamin D than others then maybe that's weakening their immune system I don't know, I don't have a position on that maybe it's because they tend to have a bad lifestyle and they tend to be more obese I don't know again it's an empirical question maybe it's the socioeconomics of it maybe among black families in places like New York there's more intergenerational families together living together so that older people got infected from younger people I don't know, all these are legitimate questions to ask but the assumption is that if you're for freedom if you're for choice if you're for everything else then you must be a racist because he says if you answered let's say, if you answered no aren't you admitting you think the lives of those who are currently disproportionately affected working class older, less healthy and people of color are less value than the lives of younger, healthier and more affluent white people now take out the white people because I don't care what color skin you have yeah, I think there's a difference between older and younger I think there's a difference between healthy and unhealthy I think there's a difference I don't think there's a difference between working class and middle class I don't think that matters but yeah, in some dimensions there is a difference and if you answered yes to question 8 if you're saying you would still support opening everything back up even if the dying were mostly being done by white people healthy people, younger people, more affluent folks I have a bonus question for you why are you lying in other words, we're all racists and if this was hitting white people we would not want the economy opening up I, by the way, want the economy opening up even if white people are dying and by the way, white people are dying I don't think this is just a black thing it's proportionately, but it's still true that most of the people dying happen to have white skin for whatever that's worth and yeah, as I said before I think there's a difference if you're young or not young affluent? Why does affluent make a difference? if rich people are dying of this wouldn't make me less inclined to open up the economy what would make me inclined or not inclined to open up the economy is data, is information about the riskiness of behavior about what causes people to die of it and the argument to close down anything to limit people's freedom I mean they would have to be it would have to be it would have to be pretty extreme situation where I would advocate opening up in any circumstances sorry, locking down in any circumstances in almost all circumstances I would argue for opening up no matter who was dying and then opening up responsibly but that responsibility is the persons not the states, not the governments the responsibility is on you figuring out what's responsible given the data given the data all right, those were the I don't think there were 10 questions I thought there were only 8 questions anyway that's Tim Weiss leftist anti individual decision making anti individual's ability to think for themselves and pro altruism in the worst kind of sense altruism is bad enough but he explicitly wants to sacrifice the business owner explicitly wants to sacrifice the able explicitly wants to sacrifice the young and the healthy to the sick I don't believe in sacrifice of anybody to anybody it's interesting in his bio the way he defines himself is I am an anti-racism educator author no Tim, what you are is racist anybody who uses race to try to inflict guilt or to try to manipulate people or to try to suggest everybody else's racist it's probably a racist anyway, I thought those were interesting questions hopefully you found them interesting what we need today what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect not by feelings, wishes whims or mystic revelations any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time so I'll do it again maybe we'll get some more today if you like what you're hearing if you appreciate what I'm doing then I appreciate your support those of you who don't yet support the show please take this opportunity go to Iranbrookshow.com subscribestar.com Iranbrookshow and make a monthly contribution to keep this going I'm not showing the next