Are the worldwide coronavirus curfew measures a harmful exaggeration or exactly what we need to do right now to save all of us? A discussion with fellow journalist Alexander Spier.

In this special episode of The Private Citizen, I’m trying an idea from producer Jonathan M.H. He suggested getting one of the Twitter people I’d had quite heated discussions with over the implications of the Coronavirus situation on the podcast for a debate. I thought this was an excellent idea because it allows me to get another viewpoint aired on the show.

After asking around, my ex-colleague Alexander Spier volunteered to come on the show and be interviewed by me on this topic. Thus, Alex becomes the first ever guest on The Private Citizen. This is also why I’m releasing this episode out of band of the normal Wednesday release schedule; I feel like it is a bit of a special thing. I hope you enjoy the ensuing debate.

Coronavirus Curfew Debate

During the discussion, Alex mentioned the article Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance, written by Tomás Pueyo, during the discussion. Pueyo earlier also wrote this piece on Medium.

Feedback

Galteran says:

I really enjoyed listening to episode 8. It made me think about the way people are dealing with the crisis. I just watched this interview of Yuval Harari, he is also pointing out to the importance of trust and the risk of surveillance, very interesting.

zaron comments via tweet:

Listening to your latest episode, you should read Zuboff’s book she doesn’t really argue for ending capitalism. Also recommend Tim Wu’s Attention Merchants.

If you also have thoughts on the things discussed here, please feel free to contact me.

Toss a Coin to Your Podcaster

I am a freelance journalist and writer, volunteering my free time because I love digging into stories and because I love podcasting. If you want to help keep The Private Citizen on the air, consider becoming one of my Patreon supporters.

You can also support the show by sending money to via PayPal, if you prefer.

This is entirely optional. This show operates under the value-for-value model, meaning I want you to give back only what you feel this show is worth to you. If that comes down to nothing, that’s OK with me, pard. But if you help out, it’s more likely that I’ll be able to keep doing this indefinitely.

Thanks and Credits

I like to credit everyone who’s helped with any aspect of this production and thus became a part of the show.

Aside from the people who have provided feedback and research and are credited as such above, I’m thankful to Raúl Cabezalí, who composed and recorded the show’s theme, a song called Acoustic Routes. I am also thankful to Bytemark, who are providing the hosting for this episode’s audio file.

But above all, I’d like to thank the following people, who have supported this episode through Patreon or PayPal and thus keep this show on the air: Niall Donegan, Michael Mullan-Jensen, Jonathan M. Hethey, Georges Walther, Dave, Kai Siers, Matt Jelliman, Fadi Mansour, Joe Poser, Rasheed Alhimianee, Mark Holland, Steve Hoos, Butterbeans, Shelby Cruver, Vlad, Dave Umrysh, ikn, Vytautas Sadauskas, RikyM and drivezero.