I think microCOVID was a hugely useful tool, and probably the most visibly useful thing that rationalists did related to the pandemic in 2020.
In graduate school, I came across micromorts, and so was already familiar with the basic idea; the main innovation for me in microCOVID was that they had collected what data was available about the infectiousness of activities and paired it with a updating database on case counts.
While the main use I got out of it was group house harmony (as now, rather than having to carefully evaluate and argue over particular activities, people could just settle on a microCOVID budget and trust each other to do calculations), I think this is an example of a generally useful tool of ‘moving decision-relevant information closer to decision-making,’ a particularly practical sort of fighting against ignorance. If someone only has a vague sense of what things carry what risks, they will probably not make as good choices as someone who sees the price tag on all of those activities.
I think microCOVID was a hugely useful tool, and probably the most visibly useful thing that rationalists did related to the pandemic in 2020.
In graduate school, I came across micromorts, and so was already familiar with the basic idea; the main innovation for me in microCOVID was that they had collected what data was available about the infectiousness of activities and paired it with a updating database on case counts.
While the main use I got out of it was group house harmony (as now, rather than having to carefully evaluate and argue over particular activities, people could just settle on a microCOVID budget and trust each other to do calculations), I think this is an example of a generally useful tool of ‘moving decision-relevant information closer to decision-making,’ a particularly practical sort of fighting against ignorance. If someone only has a vague sense of what things carry what risks, they will probably not make as good choices as someone who sees the price tag on all of those activities.