Skydiver Bill Booth and Booth's Rule #2 can tell us a lot about this careless phase of the pandemic. Stick with this. Like in diving, surfing or other high risk sports, as equipment became safer, the fatality rate remained exactly the same. There was simply a risk offset. 1/
“The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant," Booth noted. Parachutes are safer, but also faster, with high performing canopies pushing divers who become too confident because of these safety features. 2/
What was worse, the careless behavior was harming the safer divers and surfers: more fatal crashes, more collisions, more drownings as the safe riders tried to avoid the offsetting ones. 3/
It has a wonky term: Risk Homeostatis (RHT). It describes how someone can justify careless, selfish (maybe evil, looking at you GOP govs) behavior in their mind. It is harmful. It offsets the very benefit of the safety feature (think vaccine) in the first place. 4/
Anyway, the vaccinated are done with carrying the burden of those who would offset its benefits. Those who choose to live carelessly may have all sorts of reasons, but that choice can no longer undermine the safety feature we are so blessed to have now. 5/5
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