Article

2020-04-12 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Central Planning Didn't Flatten the Curve

[National Review] Still, there’s an interesting assumption common to both sides of the debate: that the government is responsible for all of this. Both defenders and the critics start from the premise that government diktats are the only variable here.

Lyman Stone, an economist based in Hong Kong, makes the case that the essential variable in "flattening the curve" isn’t central planning but behavior change. Many businesses closed down well before they were ordered to. Millions of people practiced social distancing and refused to get on planes not because they were commanded to, but because they were convinced this was a wise course of action for themselves and their loved ones.

People change their behavior when they are given clear information about risks. Various countries have flattened the curve of COVID-19 cases in different ways, Stone explained on my podcast, The Remnant. Some relied heavily on contact tracing, others on quarantining the sick, others through lockdowns ‐ or all of the above. "But what we’ve seen in every country is that what really does it is information," Stone said.

Information doesn’t just come from governments. The death tolls in Italy and New York probably did more to change behavior on the ground than all of Trump’s press conferences or Dr. Anthony Fauci’s TV appearances.

And this raises another complication for those who think the government can just "re-open" the economy with the flick of a switch. Trump and all of the governors could lift the stay-at-home orders and federal advisories tomorrow. That wouldn’t necessarily fill the restaurants, airplanes, or stadiums. People would still need to be convinced it’s safe. Such persuasion comes via clear, believable information, not orders from on high.

And that’s how it should be in a free society.

Posted by Bobby 2020-04-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 I'm so tired of people - on every side of this issue - sharpening their ideological axes.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-04-12 04:22|| 2020-04-12 04:22|| Front Page Top

#2 I saw National Review, but decent article.

Lot of people whose livelihood is based on disseminating information and opinion. Value of which depends upon being infallible, and are wanting to sell as much product as possible.

It is a Texshldm theory of going All In. For those not familiar with the game, it happens for two reasons: knock-out punch or the last act of a desperate player. It makes great drama, but ultimately depends on what is Up the River.

There is also the model, based upon my favorite card game Bullshit!, but it has the same flaw that it is also reactionary. Compared to Pkr, it has the advantage of pining out motives. It still depends upon a dramatic moment when hands are thin, the pile high. This is when the card counters have the advantage even more so than Blkjk.

To keep in Game Theory, the best thinking would go to Axis and Allies, the early additions, especially Axis and Allies: Europe (dating myself, the Red Storm Rising + Red October combo players would say Pikers!) as far as planning, logistics, and random dice occurrences such as a transport sinking a battleship.

Not to highjack, but to parallel this theme, I'm going to recommend:

This Week in Books:
Scouting on Two Continents. Memoir of F.R. Burnham

Probably my favorite line is "A Slave's Mind makes a Slave".

This memoir, I think, highlights the values of observation and curiosity.

To be fair, the work needed a better editor, and there is the leap of faith the storyteller, Burnham, is accurate in description of past events.

Without giving away the bag, all I can say is my favorite story is about the broken compass.

It is an easy to read yet educated dialogue, with, if you pardon my expression, bathroom trip tempo I had a difficult time not finishing in one go.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-12 13:16|| 2020-04-12 13:16|| Front Page Top

#3 *word monster got a couple of those inputs, adjust according please and thank you.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-12 13:16|| 2020-04-12 13:16|| Front Page Top

#4 To expand, I didn't like the line 'both sides of the debate' which, and I hate the term, triggered the binary choices of All In or Bullshit! as compared to a fluid set of choices in Axis and Allies.

There is, of course, the very real outcome of death - that is, there is a certain death rate percentage, but if it is you infected the rate is 100%, and if a person dies, that mortality rate is 100%. There are also political issues, tribal issues, livelihood issues, cultural issues, all those considerations which are as old as humanity itself.

Further exasperating the situation is that the big media centers, in the US at least, are the most affected - New York City and Los Angeles. The whole My Relevance! tendency of current culture orbits like Charon around the planet Pluto. There, I said it, nine planets. The recent example would be LeBron James stating China Great because my movie and buy my shoes fVck Hong Kong. I might be a bit geocentric here, but the best example would be the Kansas City Royals vs. New York Mets world series, and listening to the NYC centric announcers and how they non-objectively covered the game to the extent I turned the sound off during Mets' offense and turned the volume up during Royals' at-bat. Power out in KC, those hayseeds!, power out in NY, nah it'll be fine.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-12 13:36|| 2020-04-12 13:36|| Front Page Top

#5 This whole mess is political with a rancid glaze of politicized "science" on top. Positing some sort of "all pure, un-corrupted science, all the time" POV is somewhere between naive and childish.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-12 13:39|| 2020-04-12 13:39|| Front Page Top

#6 In that aspect, politics are as olde as organized humanity itself, even going back to the organized family structure. Holy Books deal with that specifically.

In my humble opinion, it was Kipling's Gods of the Copybook Heading which really set it, that humanity seems to have to re-learn its lessons over and over.

There have always been those who seek advantage. There have always been plague outbreaks

Human nature is amazing in it's very craving of information - common language. Every era in the leap of available, or even lack of available, information goes through these pains.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-12 14:38|| 2020-04-12 14:38|| Front Page Top

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