Today, we’re happy to lend this space to Tom Galvin, a former journalist who has worked at the intersection of technology, policy, and the economy for the past two decades.
Tom used those experiences to write his debut novel, The Auction, due for release later this year.
The following guest blog grew out of one of Tom’s recent Facebook posts:
The hesitant steps to reopen the economy are spurring a collective ethics test for us as citizens. Today, many of us may view the demands to end the lockdown as reckless and selfish. In eight weeks, however, if the lockdown is still in place, we may share the belief that the damage to the economy outweighs the health risks. So, who and what is right? And is there such a thing?
To explore it, I posed a question to my Facebook friends: “Imagine there’s about 500
people in your neighborhood. Would you stay in lockdown if it meant one of them wouldn’t die? Or would you say that the life saved (maybe your own) isn’t worth 500 people being out of work?”
I choose that scenario because at that moment the ratio of deaths to jobless claims was roughly 500 to 1. I didn’t reveal that at the time; I wanted to provoke thought about the difficult choices we face.
The responses mirrored the public debate. Initially, most echoed this comment, “That’s a tough one. I can’t imagine that I could live with myself if there was a chance that I had something to do with someone dying.”
Talking Ethics 