"It is
something that matters, because it has the potential to
set a dangerous precedent."
Can we stop with this talk... around everything? We're
literally living through an unprecedented event right now.
My 86 year old grandmother said she's never seen anything
like this in the US. My friends 94 year old grandmother in
Italy said she hasn't seen this since WWII. Nobody is going
to say "Well we did this during a global pandemic so we can
now do it because we feel like it". People will laugh them
out of the room. I live in Phoenix, the mayor shut down bars
and restaurants (carryout only) in order to help stop us
from becoming Italy. One of our city councilmen was saying
the same thing: "This is martial law and sets bad precedent!
We must open everything up!" Of course, they then held a
closed to the public meeting because city council can't be
exposed. The point is, the mayor isn't going to do the same
thing in six months on a whim because traffic on the freeway
is bad. Thankfully calmer heads prevailed and the rest of
the council told him to pound sand, at least for now.
Something that keeps
happening on this mailing list over the last few weeks is this
tendency to try to take the "Moral high ground". And from way
up there people are looking at the whole topic from an
idealistic point of view like we live in some Network
Operators Utopia with perfect conditions where money doesn't
exist and we can do whatever we want because there is no upper
management. We should be having a practical conversation that
sits within the confines of reality. We don't have perfect
networks built. We don't have unlimited resources. We are
facing a global pandemic. Money is tight. In principle, I
agree with what you guys are saying. But in reality, we're
going to have to bend our convictions in order to protect
populations from COVID-19. You will be changing your tune when
your mother is sick and can't get the care she needs because
the system is overwhelmed because we (communities, not just
network operators) didn't do what was necessary because of
some idealistic hard line people drew in the sand.