Conversation

Replying to
Another possibility, if you believe the Chinese numbers, is that group quarantine has a huge effect, as opposed to self-isolation. In that case, you’d have to concede that the cost of liberal democratic civil liberties is a 10x-100x higher naive fatality rate.
3
13
Korea is an outlier due to much higher tech use for testing. So more tech can offset the disadvantage of more civil liberties.
7
9
People like to compare China and the west in very abstract, ideological terms, but really I think it boils down to the political feasibility of a *single* tactic: group quarantine. Everything else is pretty much legitimately available within all political systems.
1
9
It would be interesting to apply Dictator’s Handbook lens to this and determine actual extent of power. For example India is nominally a liberal democracy, but Modi probably has tactics available to him that democratically elected leaders generally don’t.
1
5
One of the difficult questions is: assuming there really is a “cost of democracy” holding tech-level constant, should you be personally willing to pay it? Can’t honestly answer that without normalizing for your relative safety as a function of class/wealth.
2
3
Replying to
I think it's the opposite - there is not a cost for democracy, democracy is part of what keeps people safe. Safety comes from things like good public health systems, politicians responsive to people enough to not cause a famine, embarrassing information available and flowing.
1