In general, I think calling for interventions that would work but aren’t politically feasible is low value, and mostly about signalling. This is made worse by the fact that the current projection aren’t catastrophic, just very bad—but even in the worst case, it’s a waste of time.
For example, as you suggested, we could have called for groundings on February 1, and if super-strict, it could have been mostly successful—but wouldn’t have been enough. If we had banned all air travel on Feb 1, we’d still have had community transmission that had started earlier than that.
But let’s say we did it. Everyone involved would be looking for a new job by February 3rd, and the decision would have been reversed—and the people knew it. Perhaps we’d now be more upset about the reversal, but that wouldn’t have made it work, and you would of course have many people blaming the initial overreaction for why the containment failed. So I think Vox called this exactly right—you can’t implement these measures early enough, even if in the counterfactual world where people did try, and even if in that counterfactual world it would work. And as I said at the time, I didn’t think it was going to work in practice.
BUT I think that calling for eradication in the US now. We should have gone for suppression earlier, and let the CDC tell seniors not to fly, etc. But it’s unclear we could manage eradication at this point, with the spread where it is—and calling for it is a waste of our time. But don’t worry, they’ll call for more drastic measures in another 2 weeks anyways, even though it’s already too late. And then you can say you told them so. At this point, arresting everyone who has an event with more than 10 people is arrested and everyone there is fined heavily, which I think is the right strategy everywhere that can manage it—isn’t feasible in a country like the US or UK. This is for the same reason I thought banning flights on Feb 1 would be a bad idea. I don’t think the population will listen, COVID is widespread already, and authorities aren’t willing to do something so unpopular.
NOTE: I’ll likely be writing a post-mortem of my reactions and thoughts in a couple months. I was wrong to think the government was starting to handle it decently, or that they would get their act together quickly enough—I wasn’t pessimistic enough about how badly the current US administration screwed things up, or how long it would take them to let public health people actually take over managing the response—I’ve stopped hoping they will start doing that at all, despite the fact that it’s insane they haven’t.
This is a misuse of the word can’t. People can, but people don’t want to.
it’s unclear we could manage eradication at this point, with the spread where it is—and calling for it is a waste of our time
If I don’t say what the correct answer is because I and others believe that people won’t listen, then I’m not doing my job as a rationalist. My top loyalty is to the truth, even if I am 99.99% sure people won’t listen.
That might be the main point of disagreement—I’m much more interested in effective altruism in pandemic preparedness than it making true claims that are irrelevant to decision-making.
true claims that are irrelevant to decision-making
I think these true claims are highly relevant even if there is a very high chance that none of the authorities will follow them.
Covid-19 is a comparatively mild test of humanity’s capacity to fight dangerous diseases. It’s not the “real thing”, the disease X that could kill hundreds of millions of people or bring our civilization crashing down.
As such I think it’s very important for rationalists to build up a track record of making the right calls.
My only regret is that I didn’t express a strong opinion even earlier in January.
was wrong to think the government was starting to handle it decently, or that they would get their act together quickly enough—I wasn’t pessimistic enough about how badly the current US administration screwed things up, or how long it would take them to let public health people actually take over managing the response—I’ve stopped hoping they will start doing that at all, despite the fact that it’s insane they haven’t.
In general, I think calling for interventions that would work but aren’t politically feasible is low value, and mostly about signalling. This is made worse by the fact that the current projection aren’t catastrophic, just very bad—but even in the worst case, it’s a waste of time.
For example, as you suggested, we could have called for groundings on February 1, and if super-strict, it could have been mostly successful—but wouldn’t have been enough. If we had banned all air travel on Feb 1, we’d still have had community transmission that had started earlier than that.
But let’s say we did it. Everyone involved would be looking for a new job by February 3rd, and the decision would have been reversed—and the people knew it. Perhaps we’d now be more upset about the reversal, but that wouldn’t have made it work, and you would of course have many people blaming the initial overreaction for why the containment failed. So I think Vox called this exactly right—you can’t implement these measures early enough, even if in the counterfactual world where people did try, and even if in that counterfactual world it would work. And as I said at the time, I didn’t think it was going to work in practice.
BUT I think that calling for eradication in the US now. We should have gone for suppression earlier, and let the CDC tell seniors not to fly, etc. But it’s unclear we could manage eradication at this point, with the spread where it is—and calling for it is a waste of our time. But don’t worry, they’ll call for more drastic measures in another 2 weeks anyways, even though it’s already too late. And then you can say you told them so. At this point, arresting everyone who has an event with more than 10 people is arrested and everyone there is fined heavily, which I think is the right strategy everywhere that can manage it—isn’t feasible in a country like the US or UK. This is for the same reason I thought banning flights on Feb 1 would be a bad idea. I don’t think the population will listen, COVID is widespread already, and authorities aren’t willing to do something so unpopular.
NOTE: I’ll likely be writing a post-mortem of my reactions and thoughts in a couple months. I was wrong to think the government was starting to handle it decently, or that they would get their act together quickly enough—I wasn’t pessimistic enough about how badly the current US administration screwed things up, or how long it would take them to let public health people actually take over managing the response—I’ve stopped hoping they will start doing that at all, despite the fact that it’s insane they haven’t.
This is a misuse of the word can’t. People can, but people don’t want to.
If I don’t say what the correct answer is because I and others believe that people won’t listen, then I’m not doing my job as a rationalist. My top loyalty is to the truth, even if I am 99.99% sure people won’t listen.
That might be the main point of disagreement—I’m much more interested in effective altruism in pandemic preparedness than it making true claims that are irrelevant to decision-making.
I think these true claims are highly relevant even if there is a very high chance that none of the authorities will follow them.
Covid-19 is a comparatively mild test of humanity’s capacity to fight dangerous diseases. It’s not the “real thing”, the disease X that could kill hundreds of millions of people or bring our civilization crashing down.
As such I think it’s very important for rationalists to build up a track record of making the right calls.
My only regret is that I didn’t express a strong opinion even earlier in January.
I agree strongly with this sentiment.