Ryan Bell

Technology Business Litigator Serving Utah's Silicon Slopes

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@CristinaMartaR Christina, it’s great that there’s a positive portrayal of an LDS man in the show. But this is not a response to Boyd’s main point, which is that this narrative over-infers the insidious influence of an entire religion from one particularly upsetting story. Any response to that?

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@NateForUtah Any person who claims the Governor ‘taunted’ any kind of maskers is not serious person. Let’s use language more responsibly.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow It’s the abandonment of principle that poses such a real danger. You can unify a country around the right set of principles. It’s almost impossible to do so around a person or set of policy prescriptions.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow On this we disagree. There’s just no data supporting any serious risk to any but a tiny minority of kids. Now factor in community harms from lockdowns, school closures, lost activities, arrested development, etc., and the COVID risks are negligible.

Burden adults. Not kids.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Why? Isn’t that a key metric even under your rubric? Shouldn’t that (admittedly morbid) stat be key in measuring different response regimes? Many govt actors at all levels measure trade-offs that include certain numbers of expected deaths.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow But it is quite different. It poses essentially no threat to school-age people, for example. Its risks can be substantially mitigated by those at highest risk. There are effective preventative measures at an individual level. Those factors must drive policy responses.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow I don’t actually have a top priority here. Just think they’re all important. And it’s reasonable for different states to pull the toggles differently. Just chaps me when some degrade liberty to a non-issue.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Agreed. But that’s not happening here. They’re bragging about deaths— the thing we agree may have been the *least* prioritized value in the mix. They crushed it on econ. and liberty. So when your least prioritized variable is still a nation-leading feat, how is that not good?

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Which is why have like fifteen states that all had the very best COVID response.

🤔

Not sure the answer. But economic and liberties metrics have to be factored.

Point is, on balance Utah really did pretty well. Unless the only priority is killing COVID. I don’t think it is.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Right. In other words, very complicated. And probably calls for different levels of restrictions of rights at the beginning, versus later on, when people had more options to vaccinate and remove themselves from society.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow And I guess I think it’s impressive that we did that and still ended up with pretty low deaths and no systemic collapse. We might both tweak the dials just a little, but the overall balance still seems pretty unassailable, adjusting for uncertainties as things progressed.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow I don’t disagree. But it’s a line-drawing problem again. Almost everyone agrees it’s worth *some* reduction of liberty. But how much? The state that mitigated COVID while also preserving greatest liberties wins. That is often overlooked by COVID hawks. Rights really do matter.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Finally, while you offer some interesting facts and ideas, you also fail to analyze these issues in comparison to other states. It’s not a question to ask in isolation, but on a spectrum of other possible responses. Who did better and why?

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Brad, my priors incline me to disagree with you here. But I respect your call for dispassionate consideration at top of the thread, so I tried hard to open my mind and listen.

After all that, I don’t think your thread is very convincing.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow But a fair response to Utah leaders’ brags about our COVID outcomes HAS to consider these other variables. Focusing only on deaths, long-term health implications, etc. steals a base and shifts the frame away from those very real, very important other priorities.

[Ryan Bell @TechLawinUtah]

@Brad_Plothow Shouldn’t the metric focus on the right balance of health outcomes, economic stability, and respect for individual rights?

We don’t often have that conversation, frankly because it’s incredibly complex. But suppose (hypothetically), we did the BEST job of keeping our Econ going