Unit2Sucks said:
wifeisafurd said:
Unit2Sucks said:
I'm hearing lots of arguments that remind me of ancient Roman gladiator fans.
It's not up to us to decide what risks other people should take for our entertainment. Just like I should be able to decide what risks I take in my life, these students and employees should have agency.
This just isn't our decision.
Players all want to play, as do coaches. Making it their decision is not the way to go. The more experienced adults in the room have to make a decision that it is reasonably safe. And it is broader then even that. There has to be a decision on the campus side as well. No school means no football..
Assuming fans are allowed, it is your decision if you want to take the risk to attend games. Like I said in another post, with some states dropping all restrictions, we will have a better idea what are the risks by June when decisions about school and football are scheduled to be made by Cal and many Pac schools. Stay safe my friend.
Yes, to be clear, a lot of people have to give the go ahead before players can run through the tunnel. My point is that we as fans should not be demanding anyone risk their health for our entertainment.
I respectfully disagree. I don't think anyone is proposing that players be subjected to unwarranted COVID risk or risk of spreading COVID. I would add there always is some risk in areas that provide entertainment or business in general, it just is how much you are willing to accept. You go on the playing field or perform, you assume risks, especially in contact sports. We, as fans or spectators, demand athletes, NASCAR drivers, Cirque du Soleil performers, etc. assume those risks for our entertainment or otherwise.
My first day in law school, we went over a case in which future Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes overruled a lower decision holding a railroad negligent in the death of a patron, providing railroads immunity because innovative industry deserved a subsidy for economic enterprise (railroads then were instrumental to the country's development). I assume this case was to first reality check to the idealism of the first year students coming in to change the world.
We ask people in our society to take on risk in order that society may advance. We don't shut down during bad flu seasons, even though we know medical wards will be full of children and 60,000 or so Americans will die from the flu in a bad year per the CDC. (I think the US has around 80K COVID deaths so far).
The Holmes case has long been overruled as railroads diminished in value, but the concept still survives. Just look at cases on internet immunity. Judges, economists, accountants, politicians, and many other professions are used to cost benefit analysis. One profession that doesn't always seem that way is medical regulators. When I hear the Infectious Disease dude from Santa Clara County say he will not open up any business until he is assured there will not be one COVID death under his watch, I really have to wonder. He certainly will never be able to say that about seasonal flu or just even someone getting a pneumonia from a bad bug where thousands will die under his watch every year. We as a society assume risks in order to function. Yet I see essentially the same statement as the Santa Clara guy on this board from seemingly sophisticated people. The best argument is not a person or even some people may die from COVID if you are too aggressive. In order to allow a free and open society we subject people to risk and death all the time. It is that you will set the stage for a second wave and too many will die to offset the other impacts on closing society and business down. And we have several states testing that premise right now by dropping SIP restrictions, and I guess (hope?) we will find out by June the results. But in the meantime, petty dictators like the guy in Santa Clara don't help the cause for those of us expecting rational leadership.