If a restaurant asks me to not talk with my partner while I’m eating there, I’ll just chose to not eat there.
I’m vaccinated. I’ve done my part. It seems like new restrictions and rules are forever escalating, and will continue to do so past any reasonable point.
To me, getting vaccinated feels like table stakes for participating in society, but it’s necessary, not sufficient.
It’s increasingly obvious vaccination doesn’t prevent the spread. If a restaurant wants to encourage people to visit by discouraging them from spreading the virus while they’re visiting, more power to them. Winter is coming, and eating outside is increasingly challenging in most of the northern hemisphere.
If it’s obvious the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread, then why is it table stakes for anything? At that point it’s just a personal safety choice, and I don’t care at all if others get it.
How does that address my point of getting the vaccine myself vs others getting it? Also, even if I was just talking about the value of getting the vaccine (which I wasn’t) that’s a terrible analogy. If you jump out of a plane without a parachute you’ll certainly die. As a healthy person, if I get covid I will almost certainly survive and recover quickly.
Because otherwise big pharma couldn't get richer and politicians pushing it wouldn't get their commission, which is more important than the lifes of catt...citizens.
Political actions like forbidding hospital access to unvaccinated people in France showed long time ago that the purpose of vaccine mandates is not health related.
Vaccination isn't a ticket or an anointment, it's an injection that prepares your immune system to better fight the coronavirus.
Saying that there's no need for it because it's not a complete solution is like selling your car because you still have to walk to get from your couch to your car.
Same reason it's illegal to not wear your seatbelt. Your "personal safety choice" becomes everyone's problem when you get hurt and take up a hospital bed.
Well good news, that was done a long time ago to the point now where the hospitals are soo empty we can just fire people for not following the mandates...
I mean they would not fire nurses and doctors if they were critically needed would they?...
Sarcasm aside... from most reports I see in the US, the hospitals are filling up with non-covid people that delayed treatments to mass fear around covid, now all of the other every day illness is catching up to people. good job we did there with the fear propaganda
> It’s increasingly obvious vaccination doesn’t prevent the spread.
The idea that spread is something that should be stopped at ANY cost is false. Now, what is the price we are willing to pay to stop it? We've already used a novel vaccine. What next? The highest price acceptable by me has been paid.
Mandatory testing before you are allowed to leave house? I see that as next logical step. And really should have been the chosen method instead of vaccination passports.
So where do you stop? Do I need mandatory testing for all illness as well? What about inebration, should my door have a BAC meter on it? Every car??
The amount of draconian authoritarianism people are willing to accept here is insanity to me. I often read Sci-Fi dystopian novels thinking "How could a future like that happen really" Now I know... people are willing to trade every ounce of freedom they have for the perception of safety. Very sad
I agree with your first paragraph. I don't eat with other people often but if a shop asked me not to talk when being with someone else I would just go elsewhere. Also I suspect the writer of the article put lot of efforts searching for such a shop because the only place I ever saw with the mokushoku policy is one of the university cafeteria and people (including me) don't follow it anyway. There is also a lot of plastic, which is useless but in line of the Japanese mentality of doing things for the sake of doing them instead of the impact it has on the output.
What I don't understand is why The Atlantic is compelled to write up this piece of how to eat ramen from a Western perspective. Shouldn't this specific mandate be more applicable to those eating at a teppanyaki or hot pot restaurant instead?
Eating ramen is highly individualized and tends to not include miscellaneous side dishes.
> If a restaurant asks me to not talk with my partner while I’m eating there, I’ll just chose to not eat there.
That's fair enough. Personally, I think I'd actually appreciate this kind of quiet and serenity for a bit, completely separate from COVID. A moment of peace, silence, and reflection. I think we could all do with a bit more of that instead of the constant distractions of music, chatter, etc.
You do you. But I'll eat at home alone if that's what I want to do. If I'm eating at a restaurant, almost all of the value proposition is the environment and socialization with the people I went with.
I feel similarly about the "show ID and proof of vaccination to enter" policy that went into effect last week here in King County. It's too much. I got my shots, I've done my part with masks and distancing and so forth; a "return to normal" which includes checkpoints and paperwork at every door does not feel at all normal to me. I'd rather just keep waiting.
The new King County policy _explicitly_ disallows asking for ID to verify the name on the vaccination card matches the person holding it (something about being unequitable for those who don't have an ID).
It's all a power trip, meant to look like leadership is taking decisive action. But they have no idea what they're doing.
not even talking about him riding the woke wave and talking about cultural appropriation and stuff while appropriating japanese culture or chinese culture and calling his dishes "MALA" something to make it ethnic while the dish doesn't share anything with its roots.
That sounds fabulous and is a definite stark contrast from "the best local ramen" here in the Austin,TX area. It's apparently vogue here to have music so loud you can't hear your dining companion unless they shout.
In Singapore, music in the public is largely forbidden until further notice. Especially in restaurants, so people do not need to raise their voice to understand each other.
It was eerie at first but I enjoy the calmness in the city now, e.g. drinking a glass in a rooftop bar of a 60 story building in total quietude is an event.
"Are you guys ok?", "would you like a drink top up?", "is everything ok?", "do you need anything?"
Dinners in US are irritable to me. I understand why and how it happens, I just wish there was a sign a wrist band or something to signal to waiting staff to leave me alone unless i ask for their help.
I feel like I've encountered less of that style of service lately. But I don't know though if it's that the types of restaurants I go to have changed, or there's a cultural difference having moved recently to NYC.
"vogue here"? Only if "here" is defined to mean the United States as a whole. How are you going to know that you're enjoying yourself if you aren't half-deafened?
My ramen experiences in Japan are very different to the ones abroad. In Japan, ramen is meant to be pretty quick, taking "fast food" to a whole other level: you go in, order and pay, sit down, eat, then leave. The eating environment is often either a tiny table, a seat at a bar or a small booth. It's usually not a place for social get togethers.
In Europe on the other hand, they're usually normal sit down restaurants. You have to go through the normal dance of waiting to be seated, ordering with the server, waiting 10-15 mins for your food then trying to get somebody's attention to pay when you're done.
Good ramen, but not a good place for an introvert, in my experience. First is the interminable wait in line. If you survive that and place your order, seating is hell. If you are by yourself, you will be forced to sit at the bar so close to other patrons you are practically in their lap on a stool made to torture a monk. If you are worthy of a table seat by having friends, then you are in one of those fashionable metal seats invented by Torquemada’s welder buddies.
Same experience here with some places. There is one really well known spot in Chicago that is supposed to be so good. It's right near restaurant row and it's obnoxiously loud, always has an insane wait and it's mediocre at best. For some reason people like it
I am vaccinated and went to Seattle to visit some friends there last weekend. I was shocked to find that I had to show my vaccine card to enter a restaurant and wear a mask the whole time. I was the first one of my friends group to go into full quarantine in February 2020, but the statistics now show it is as safe as it was pre-pandemic to return to our regular lives. Why are people insisting on escalating restrictions further?
>but the statistics now show it is as safe as it was pre-pandemic to return to our regular lives. Why are people insisting on escalating restrictions further?
Probably because the statistics don't say that at all.
If you use Florida as a basis for risk, it's almost non existent last few weeks. Unless you're old, a fat, or have a preexisting risk is relatively low.
People would be surprised how many people they know have an invisible condition that they get through life with relatively ok, but that is absolutely a risk due to covid.
Actually it is quite well defined by now which medical conditions are comorbidities, and we've known the increase in risk as we go up in age group. Where do you currently see conflicting evidence?
It's quite convenient to think only of oneself when one is at low risk. If we can't successfully appeal to community and altruism, then simply imagine what it would be like to be diagnosed with a condition that no longer gives you the luxury of holding personal freedom above all else.
US at statistical level has roughly 50% of population double dosed. That leaves other 50% none protected (we are speaking roughly no need to split hairs on this one).
You can spread covid even when vaccinated, so you can infect and potentially kill due to your choices.
You can easily make a case, wanting regular life back is a morally vague at best if not outright immoral.
But there is that little ego man inside me that whispers: those 30-50% are people who didn't isolated at the start, who fanned the fire of covid in the first place, who clamied/claim its all a hoax. And now I have to suffer more restrictions for their sake, due to their own choices? If they want their freedom so much, let me have my life back too at their cost.
Maybe. My back-of-the-envelope calculations say that these are sensible precautions, but it's possible that all the tiny factors I ignored happen to line up in a way that makes my conclusion wrong.
the statistics now show it is as safe as it was pre-pandemic to return to our regular lives
They do? King County 7-day average new infections are ~400/day, which is higher than the rolling average since the outbreak began. It's higher than all but the 2020/21 winter spike and the surge that started in late summer 2021.
It's crazy the differences between states and cities. I'm live in Denver and couldn't tell you the last time I wore a mask. Some places still have a mask mandate here and I can count the number of places that require a Vax card on one hand (mostly concert/sports venues).
Denver is a very liberal place and while that shouldn't make an impact, I expected it to be much stricter than where I came from (GA) but it's about the same.
The cost of freedom isn’t nothing. Just as our predecessors had to sacrifice for World War II. We must sacrifice things to allow people to survive against the corona virus.
> Could you help us out by quieting down? He said that most people have a hard time turning down such a request.
Can you imagine trying that somewhere in the United States? Let's just say there are quite a few people that would definitely turn down that request. I am shocked how little people in this country care about other people or society in general. Especially compared to a place like Japan.
most ramen places around my office (gotanda) could be considered fast food. customers usually go alone to eat in about 10 minutes and back to work (no time to talk). udon restaurants with no seats at all are also very common. that makes you eat even faster
The dinner table is a place for socialization. This is where conversations take place, where people discuss all sorts of things (including subjects of political relevance).
Appealing to COVID to enforce silence especially in settings where a good portion of communication takes place is a great social harm. The isolation of the pandemic was bad enough in this regard. We've lost our minds where COVID is concerned. We've made rituals of real or imaginary effectiveness the highest standard of conduct.
COVID is not synonymous with death, as if by voiding COVID you or others will avoid death. The extremist, fallacious, and obsessive thinking surrounding COVID very much qualifies as a phobia and one which leads to imprudent and irrational fears unmoored from the reality and risks of everyday life.
You will die eventually. Everyone will. Get used to it. And it probably won't be because you got COVID.
If the food is worth the silence, I'll try it out. I understand the policy as Japan is a collectivist country. So it's not quite hard to follow the rules.
Ramen isn't exactly a social food anyway. The food is individual by design, it's hard to eat it with good manners, it's best eaten quickly, and it's cheap so the expectation is that you don't linger and chat.
> And there’s evidence that silence actually works.
My God, do I despise people who pull down their mask when they talk. I see it everywhere, at work, in airplanes, etc. It's almost like any form of common sense is lost.
Just the other day I had the wonderful experience of seeing someone who pulled their mask down to cough. If only there was a reason the mask was there.
What's that? I should get a clear mask? How does that help me understand YOU?
Prior to this whole thing I had pretty decent communications skills and could understand most of what was said to me after a life time of struggling to learn all sorts of tricks and tools to be able to understand my way around mumbling, muttering, accents, etc etc. Since everyone started covering up their faces the only recourse I have is to ask for the person to repeat themselves. Again. And again. And again.
When that person finally unblocks their face long enough to actually COMMUNICATE with me? I sincerely bless them for their efforts to get the message across. I despise the assholes like yourself whose only reason to exist is to make communication harder for people like me.
Wow, I can't imagine the struggle you must be going through in a masked-up world. That's got to be just incredibly frustrating and alienating.
Do you think maybe your hostility might be misdirected a bit though? Do you think it's fair to lash out at people who are advocating for more sensible mask usage for their intended purpose of preventing the spread of a virus and simply failing to consider the impact they have on you and the minority of others similarly afflicted?
I do think that pulling down a mask to communicate with a deaf person is probably the right thing to do, but I also think the person who you're responding to isn't off-base in a general assumption that most people doing that don't have such good reasons.
Your comment is disheartening, mainly because if there's actually a good reason to unmask (and to note that I do when speaking with a deaf person), I'll do it regardless if it technically break regulations or not. This is definitely targeted to those who already can comprehend speech clearly without relying on gestures or lip reading - that behaviour really, really irks me because that's not compassion - it's selfishness, and that defeats the whole thing.
While you may prefer it when people pull their masks down to talk to you. I would bet there's going to be another lipreader who would be aghast if i were to pull my mask down to talk to them. I'd need to establish you were okay with it first and that the communication is important enough to justify the risks. Even then it's not unreasonable to refuse unless the communication was essential, a genuine health risk is going to trump communication 99% of the time.
While i would be okay with doing this as i'm vaccinated and in a low risk category and don't live with high risk people, if that wasn't the case (most people) I wouldn't under any circumstances pull my mask down unless the communication was life or death. I would have a choice between inflicting a horrible death on myself/others or making your life unfairly difficult. And as unfair as that is to you, choosing the second doesn't make someone an asshole when you consider the options available.
The only solution I can think of would be everyone wearing clear masks/shields, but since they aren't widely available and are more expensive, I don't think it's reasonable to expect most people to do it.
I think your anger (justified as it may be) is being misdirected here and your response doesn't really relate to the comment you're replying to.
> only reason to exist is to make communication harder for people like me.
Interesting worldview if you think trying to keep a global pandemic under control is based entirely on making your communication more difficult. I wonder how people respond to you who otherwise take the perspective of greater good > individual liberties
Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
I am sorry, but I am responding with the same wording as the commenter - to show how this is over the top in this context.
I understand the importance not to go into flamewars, and I am glad this is not something we have on HN, I feel however they mirroring the expressions of a commenter in as another perspective helps.
I scolded the other commenter as well, but you (i.e. each of us) need to follow the rules regardless of what other users do. "But they started it" is a recipe for a downward spiral—it always feels like the other person started it and did worse.
I completely understand what you are saying - and this is one of the points I like in HN that much. Your policing is the reason for that.
What I meant to say is that it is a figure of style to respond in a mirrored fashion (I think this is called chaismus or antithesis in English) to show that the argument works both sides.
But yes, you are right and, again, point taken. Thank you for the policing.
I empathize with your situation, but please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It doesn't help. And when you go all the way to "fuck you", it harms the position you're arguing for. If you're right on the fundamentals, that actually hurts everybody.
Please don't post flamewar comments or unsubstantive comments to HN, regardless of how badly other people behave or you feel they behave. We're trying for something quite different here.
Ichiran, a famous tonkotsu ramen joint from Fukuoka now franchised internationally, has been doing the "eat your ramen in silence" thing long since before COVID made it cool. The atmosphere has been not inaccurately likened to an old school porno parlor, with everybody intently doing their own thing in their private one-person booths.
Wow, it's really lucky that shouting to the cook when you order doesn't spread the virus, even though talking to other customers does spread it. What a relief!!
Where does this end? When will people be satisfied? When we all remain alone at home in silence, masked up and living through VR goggles in the Metaverse?
It's becoming harder and harder to claim what's happening is all about "health".
98 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadI’m vaccinated. I’ve done my part. It seems like new restrictions and rules are forever escalating, and will continue to do so past any reasonable point.
To me, getting vaccinated feels like table stakes for participating in society, but it’s necessary, not sufficient.
It’s increasingly obvious vaccination doesn’t prevent the spread. If a restaurant wants to encourage people to visit by discouraging them from spreading the virus while they’re visiting, more power to them. Winter is coming, and eating outside is increasingly challenging in most of the northern hemisphere.
To many people believe "freedom" means "people need to do, and accept what I want"... That is not freedom
the business is free to say "no talking" and I am free to say "no shopping there"....
That is the market at work. The problem is when government attempts to impose requirements on either the business or the customer.
Let the market work, we do not need government mandating in either direction
Political actions like forbidding hospital access to unvaccinated people in France showed long time ago that the purpose of vaccine mandates is not health related.
Saying that there's no need for it because it's not a complete solution is like selling your car because you still have to walk to get from your couch to your car.
I mean they would not fire nurses and doctors if they were critically needed would they?...
Sarcasm aside... from most reports I see in the US, the hospitals are filling up with non-covid people that delayed treatments to mass fear around covid, now all of the other every day illness is catching up to people. good job we did there with the fear propaganda
Current vaccination levels are inadequate to stop the spread, but they do significantly reduce it.
The idea that spread is something that should be stopped at ANY cost is false. Now, what is the price we are willing to pay to stop it? We've already used a novel vaccine. What next? The highest price acceptable by me has been paid.
The amount of draconian authoritarianism people are willing to accept here is insanity to me. I often read Sci-Fi dystopian novels thinking "How could a future like that happen really" Now I know... people are willing to trade every ounce of freedom they have for the perception of safety. Very sad
Eating ramen is highly individualized and tends to not include miscellaneous side dishes.
That's fair enough. Personally, I think I'd actually appreciate this kind of quiet and serenity for a bit, completely separate from COVID. A moment of peace, silence, and reflection. I think we could all do with a bit more of that instead of the constant distractions of music, chatter, etc.
The new King County policy _explicitly_ disallows asking for ID to verify the name on the vaccination card matches the person holding it (something about being unequitable for those who don't have an ID).
It's all a power trip, meant to look like leadership is taking decisive action. But they have no idea what they're doing.
Momofuku and Milkbar are given so much love, you'd think they invented flight or something.
Netflix will go full Terrance Mallick mode backed by a symphony, while they pan the camera to someone making a cookie. It is utterly absurd.
It was eerie at first but I enjoy the calmness in the city now, e.g. drinking a glass in a rooftop bar of a 60 story building in total quietude is an event.
Dinners in US are irritable to me. I understand why and how it happens, I just wish there was a sign a wrist band or something to signal to waiting staff to leave me alone unless i ask for their help.
In Europe on the other hand, they're usually normal sit down restaurants. You have to go through the normal dance of waiting to be seated, ordering with the server, waiting 10-15 mins for your food then trying to get somebody's attention to pay when you're done.
Probably because the statistics don't say that at all.
I sincerely hope that is a typo/second language error and not how you're describing/thinking about people.
Unless you're [most people in the United States]
Those probably cover like 60% of the US population (mostly due to prevalent obesity and an aging population)
It's one of the aspects of the current lockdown measures that I'm growing weary of. There's no specificity w/r/t who are actually the most vulnerable.
It's quite convenient to think only of oneself when one is at low risk. If we can't successfully appeal to community and altruism, then simply imagine what it would be like to be diagnosed with a condition that no longer gives you the luxury of holding personal freedom above all else.
US at statistical level has roughly 50% of population double dosed. That leaves other 50% none protected (we are speaking roughly no need to split hairs on this one).
You can spread covid even when vaccinated, so you can infect and potentially kill due to your choices.
You can easily make a case, wanting regular life back is a morally vague at best if not outright immoral.
But there is that little ego man inside me that whispers: those 30-50% are people who didn't isolated at the start, who fanned the fire of covid in the first place, who clamied/claim its all a hoax. And now I have to suffer more restrictions for their sake, due to their own choices? If they want their freedom so much, let me have my life back too at their cost.
In most countries, that would be a huge reduction in restrictions.
They do? King County 7-day average new infections are ~400/day, which is higher than the rolling average since the outbreak began. It's higher than all but the 2020/21 winter spike and the surge that started in late summer 2021.
Denver is a very liberal place and while that shouldn't make an impact, I expected it to be much stricter than where I came from (GA) but it's about the same.
Edit:wording and clarification
Can you imagine trying that somewhere in the United States? Let's just say there are quite a few people that would definitely turn down that request. I am shocked how little people in this country care about other people or society in general. Especially compared to a place like Japan.
Appealing to COVID to enforce silence especially in settings where a good portion of communication takes place is a great social harm. The isolation of the pandemic was bad enough in this regard. We've lost our minds where COVID is concerned. We've made rituals of real or imaginary effectiveness the highest standard of conduct.
COVID is not synonymous with death, as if by voiding COVID you or others will avoid death. The extremist, fallacious, and obsessive thinking surrounding COVID very much qualifies as a phobia and one which leads to imprudent and irrational fears unmoored from the reality and risks of everyday life.
You will die eventually. Everyone will. Get used to it. And it probably won't be because you got COVID.
My God, do I despise people who pull down their mask when they talk. I see it everywhere, at work, in airplanes, etc. It's almost like any form of common sense is lost.
What's that? I should get a clear mask? How does that help me understand YOU?
Prior to this whole thing I had pretty decent communications skills and could understand most of what was said to me after a life time of struggling to learn all sorts of tricks and tools to be able to understand my way around mumbling, muttering, accents, etc etc. Since everyone started covering up their faces the only recourse I have is to ask for the person to repeat themselves. Again. And again. And again.
When that person finally unblocks their face long enough to actually COMMUNICATE with me? I sincerely bless them for their efforts to get the message across. I despise the assholes like yourself whose only reason to exist is to make communication harder for people like me.
Do you think maybe your hostility might be misdirected a bit though? Do you think it's fair to lash out at people who are advocating for more sensible mask usage for their intended purpose of preventing the spread of a virus and simply failing to consider the impact they have on you and the minority of others similarly afflicted?
I do think that pulling down a mask to communicate with a deaf person is probably the right thing to do, but I also think the person who you're responding to isn't off-base in a general assumption that most people doing that don't have such good reasons.
While i would be okay with doing this as i'm vaccinated and in a low risk category and don't live with high risk people, if that wasn't the case (most people) I wouldn't under any circumstances pull my mask down unless the communication was life or death. I would have a choice between inflicting a horrible death on myself/others or making your life unfairly difficult. And as unfair as that is to you, choosing the second doesn't make someone an asshole when you consider the options available.
The only solution I can think of would be everyone wearing clear masks/shields, but since they aren't widely available and are more expensive, I don't think it's reasonable to expect most people to do it.
I think your anger (justified as it may be) is being misdirected here and your response doesn't really relate to the comment you're replying to.
Interesting worldview if you think trying to keep a global pandemic under control is based entirely on making your communication more difficult. I wonder how people respond to you who otherwise take the perspective of greater good > individual liberties
I understand that you are struggling but we are where we are with COVID.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I understand the importance not to go into flamewars, and I am glad this is not something we have on HN, I feel however they mirroring the expressions of a commenter in as another perspective helps.
This said, point taken.
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...
What I meant to say is that it is a figure of style to respond in a mirrored fashion (I think this is called chaismus or antithesis in English) to show that the argument works both sides.
But yes, you are right and, again, point taken. Thank you for the policing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://qz.com/quartzy/1588711/ichiran-ramen-shop-offers-ser...
It's becoming harder and harder to claim what's happening is all about "health".