1. Most people tend to be right about 60% of the time when they feel fairly certain. If we apply this logic to your assumptions, the chance that they are all correct is approximately 0. Many things we were told about CV2 turned out to be wrong. That is a bit simplistic, but your analysis should take into account that your assumptions may not all be correct, and the consequences of this. For example what if young people have silent organ damage, as has been reported? What if immunity is limited, uncertain, or short-lived, as if often the case with corona viruses? Such errors could be very costly. In general the strategy of “pick the most likely scenario and bet erh farm on that one scenario” is a poor strategy.
2. By getting infected now, you are giving away much by way of option value. The value of getting immunized later, of having better treatment later, of having better and less costly methods of limiting infection, etc.
3. You are falling for the false dichotomy of lockdown versus uncontrolled pandemic. I suggest you have a close look at Taiwan, which has had approximately 1/700th the death rate of the US for example, and which did not have a lockdown. While Taiwan did make a fast start, Australia got down into the Taiwan range of active cases within about 5 weeks, and other countries could also do this with a brief lockdown.
Techniques used by Taiwan include contact tracing, strict controls on entrants to the country, enforcement of quarantine of cases, use of soft metrics like temperature and cold/fever symptoms with exclusion from schools/work/transport for the symptomatic, and others. They have selectively closed some high risk businesses like “hostess bars”.
This problem of becoming fixated on one aspect of a problem or one one thing generally, “Einstellung” in German, is an important cognitive bias that is not talked about often enough IMHO. A common example these days is the notion that the USA has one problem, Donald Trump, and with him gone all would be right with the world again.
Most people tend to be right about 60% of the time when they feel fairly certain. If we apply this logic to your assumptions, the chance that they are all correct is approximately 0.
I don’t think there’s any point in applying extreme outside views like this here. One of my premises is “Most LWers are young, otherwise healthy, and not living with anyone for whom those things aren’t true.” Maybe that’s not true, but if so, wouldn’t it be obvious to those people? Also, I think it’s pretty obvious which of these points are cruxes and which are just a bit of additional support. (See my edit about long-term damage, though.)
By getting infected now, you are giving away much by way of option value.
That’s true, but if we assume a reasonable amount of immunity, you’re also giving away a lot of option value by NOT getting infected now.
You are falling for the false dichotomy of lockdown versus uncontrolled pandemic. I suggest you have a close look at Taiwan, which has had approximately 1/700th the death rate of the US for example, and which did not have a lockdown. While Taiwan did make a fast start, Australia got down into the Taiwan range of active cases within about 5 weeks, and other countries could also do this with a brief lockdown.
Techniques used by Taiwan include contact tracing, strict controls on entrants to the country, enforcement of quarantine of cases, use of soft metrics like temperature and cold/fever symptoms with exclusion from schools/work/transport for the symptomatic, and others. They have selectively closed some high risk businesses like “hostess bars”.
I think this is orthogonal to my point, which was about individual decision-making, not setting societal policy. However, for the sake of argument:
I don’t think Taiwan’s (and South Korea’s, and probably some other places’) approach is feasible in the USA (I’m not sure about Europe). It requires extraordinarily high levels of voluntary compliance, or ignoring civil liberties and privacy, or both. Culturally, I don’t think the USA’s rate of voluntary compliance can be high enough, so the only way to make this work would be to force people to follow these policies. I don’t think that’s politically feasible, and I myself would find it difficult to support.
I do think getting to that point is what the medical authorities who recommended lockdowns had in mind. I don’t think it’s going to happen, though. If that’s right, the USA will pay the costs of lockdowns (which are actually much higher if we lock down repeatedly and/or for a longer time because we aren’t there yet), without ever getting most of the benefits.
1. Most people tend to be right about 60% of the time when they feel fairly certain. If we apply this logic to your assumptions, the chance that they are all correct is approximately 0. Many things we were told about CV2 turned out to be wrong. That is a bit simplistic, but your analysis should take into account that your assumptions may not all be correct, and the consequences of this. For example what if young people have silent organ damage, as has been reported? What if immunity is limited, uncertain, or short-lived, as if often the case with corona viruses? Such errors could be very costly. In general the strategy of “pick the most likely scenario and bet erh farm on that one scenario” is a poor strategy.
2. By getting infected now, you are giving away much by way of option value. The value of getting immunized later, of having better treatment later, of having better and less costly methods of limiting infection, etc.
3. You are falling for the false dichotomy of lockdown versus uncontrolled pandemic. I suggest you have a close look at Taiwan, which has had approximately 1/700th the death rate of the US for example, and which did not have a lockdown. While Taiwan did make a fast start, Australia got down into the Taiwan range of active cases within about 5 weeks, and other countries could also do this with a brief lockdown.
Techniques used by Taiwan include contact tracing, strict controls on entrants to the country, enforcement of quarantine of cases, use of soft metrics like temperature and cold/fever symptoms with exclusion from schools/work/transport for the symptomatic, and others. They have selectively closed some high risk businesses like “hostess bars”.
This problem of becoming fixated on one aspect of a problem or one one thing generally, “Einstellung” in German, is an important cognitive bias that is not talked about often enough IMHO. A common example these days is the notion that the USA has one problem, Donald Trump, and with him gone all would be right with the world again.
I don’t think there’s any point in applying extreme outside views like this here. One of my premises is “Most LWers are young, otherwise healthy, and not living with anyone for whom those things aren’t true.” Maybe that’s not true, but if so, wouldn’t it be obvious to those people? Also, I think it’s pretty obvious which of these points are cruxes and which are just a bit of additional support. (See my edit about long-term damage, though.)
That’s true, but if we assume a reasonable amount of immunity, you’re also giving away a lot of option value by NOT getting infected now.
I think this is orthogonal to my point, which was about individual decision-making, not setting societal policy. However, for the sake of argument:
I don’t think Taiwan’s (and South Korea’s, and probably some other places’) approach is feasible in the USA (I’m not sure about Europe). It requires extraordinarily high levels of voluntary compliance, or ignoring civil liberties and privacy, or both. Culturally, I don’t think the USA’s rate of voluntary compliance can be high enough, so the only way to make this work would be to force people to follow these policies. I don’t think that’s politically feasible, and I myself would find it difficult to support.
I do think getting to that point is what the medical authorities who recommended lockdowns had in mind. I don’t think it’s going to happen, though. If that’s right, the USA will pay the costs of lockdowns (which are actually much higher if we lock down repeatedly and/or for a longer time because we aren’t there yet), without ever getting most of the benefits.
But hey, let’s hope I’m wrong.