Quote of the day 26th March 2020
"In normal times it would be utterly unacceptable."
"These are not normal times.
"As long as the emergency lasts and these powers are necessary, they should be available to the Government."
(Lord Falconer, speaking in the House of Lords on behalf of the opposition, about the government's Coronavirus Emergency powers bill which has now been passed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and will shortly become law, and explaining why the opposition supported the bill.)
"These are not normal times.
"As long as the emergency lasts and these powers are necessary, they should be available to the Government."
(Lord Falconer, speaking in the House of Lords on behalf of the opposition, about the government's Coronavirus Emergency powers bill which has now been passed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and will shortly become law, and explaining why the opposition supported the bill.)
Comments
If the ironic inconsistents really do want simple certainty and draconian lockdowns they will be not be over enthused with this development.
I hear what you say, Jim, but this situation really, really isn't normal.
If the worst pandemic for at least a hundred years - and potentially more than that, if we do nothing it is not difficult to see that COVID-19 could kill twice as many people as the 2019 pandemic, e.g. half a million people - does not constitute unusual times, it is difficult to see what would.
Our entire global banking system is on the verge of collapse - here the banks were bailed out with taxpayers money, and the first time by selling or rather giving away gold, but in light of current stituations there is another - "Its difficult to see what is" moment.
I hear what you are saying about a viral disease having potential to kill half a million people if we do nothing. Thats just it, people have, and always have had the option to self isolate. The vunerable and anyone else who wants to always have had that option. I can see the need for the quarantine of the symptomatic, that makes a lot of sense, stops them coughing all over public places. You see people can isolate, they dont need a govenment to lock up the entire nation in the name of protection.
Another intesting aspect of this is the movie iRobot, Viki the supercomputer uses Isaac Asimov's 3 laws which ensured robots only aid and never hurt humans, they are the only thing that guide her. She realised the only way to protect humanity was to lock us all up to prevent us from harming or killing ourselves or coming to harm by disesase. Her plan was to lock every person down in sterile envionments with the essentials to sustain life provided, she knew we were too stupid to realise its for our own good so she had to forcefully capture us, some casualties in achieving this were ok as the greater good demanded it. Obviously the people were not too happy about this so the film ends with viki being destroyed.
3 laws
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law