Open Thread 152

This is the bi-weekly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page). Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit – and also check out the SSC Podcast. Also:

1. There’s an online SSC “meetup” happening next Sunday, April 26, at 10:30 PDT. See here for more details.

2. Berkeley’s rationalist community center, REACH, has also gone online, so their meetings and talks and so on are now open to anyone who’s interested. Learn more at their Facebook page here.

3. You may previously have seen the sidebar ad for Altruisto, a browser app that automatically donates a portion of your online shopping spending to effective charity at no cost to you. They want me to let you know that there’s an updated version available.

4. Thanks to everyone who sent me comments about “A Failure, But Not Of Prediction” (though as always I prefer you post the comments on the blog so other people can see them). An especially common concern was that my dichotomy between “official sources” (wrong) and “random smart people online” (right) was unfair in a few ways. First, because some official sources (like independent expert epidemiologists) got things right early. Second, because many of the smart people online I mentioned didn’t get things right until late February/early March, by which time some of the media was also starting to get things right (see Anonymous Bosch’s complaint here, Scott Aaronson’s response here, and Sarah Constantin’s comment here). I’m sorry I’m not up for the amount of work it would take to respond to these concerns fairly and correct all my inconsistencies here, but there’s some good discussion at the linked comments.

Another frequent topic was nominations of worthy people who deserved public praise for getting things right early. I was trying to avoid having this be a “hall of shame, hall of fame” post, because there are so many people who deserve mention in both that it would inevitably be unfair. I tried to sidestep this entire issue by quoting a previous list someone else had made. But two names that came up a lot were Steve Hsu (see eg January post here, check also the comments) and Curtis Yarvin (February 1st article here). I’m sure I’m still forgetting many great people who deserve recognition.

A third frequent topic was people who said the pandemic was actually easy to predict; some of these people backed this up with proof that they in fact predicted it, and an explanation of the (completely logical) thought processes they used to do that. Again, these people are great and deserve praise. But I don’t consider a few people getting it right proof that it was “easy to predict” in a meaningful way. If predictions regarding some event follow a standard distribution from overly denialist to overly alarmist, then every event that turns out to be alarming will necessarily have some people who correctly predicted it (eg were the right level of alarmed) before the fact. But to do anything useful, we need to be able to identify those people beforehand. So for me, the interesting question is whether there’s some consistent way for a bird’s-eye Outside View observer to predict something before the fact, eg by using certain prediction aggregators or known reliable experts. If you can’t do that, I think it’s fair to call an event “hard to predict” from a social standpoint, even if it was easy for some people, and even if it should have been easy for everyone based on how logical it was.

5. Some people have brought up that my thrive vs. survive theory of the political spectrum does an unusually bad job predicting current events, especially the thing where Democrats mostly want to maintain lockdown and Republicans mostly want to take their chances. I don’t have much to say about this, but I acknowledge it’s true, and you should update your models accordingly.

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1,240 Responses to Open Thread 152

  1. Just a note that there will be a South Bay SSC meetup this Saturday at 2 P.M. Due to the difficulty of people getting to our house and my failure to (yet) reproduce my house in virtual reality, we will meet at the Parthenon on Mozilla Hubs.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      Just a note that there will be a South Bay SSC meetup this Saturday at 2 P.M. Due to the difficulty of people getting to our house and my failure to (yet) reproduce

      … did I only imagine Rebecca posting here?

      my house in virtual reality

      Ohhh.

    • I have not succeeded in producing a close copy of our house on Hubs, although I learned a good deal trying. But I have made a functional equivalent, a site with four rooms of differing sizes that people can move among. Since I already announced the meetup at the Parthenon for this Saturday I will hold it there, but if we end up with more than the permitted number, which I think is fifty, the overflow can start a new meetup there. And I will probably use it for the meetup after this one.

      And if anyone wants to try the new site, I am there now and you are welcome to drop in to chat.

      • Someone recently joined me in my new Hubs site. Others are welcome to come and try it out. I have no idea how long the link remains good, but the link for the Parthenon was still up a little while ago.

  2. Le Maistre Chat says:

    Lovecraft review: “The Whisperer in Darkness”
    This novella was originally published in the August, 1931 issue of Weird Tales. The cover went to a Tarzan clone called “Tam, Son of the Tiger” by Otis Adelbert Kline. Not even a naked woman!

    This is the story where Lovecraft’s famous Mi-Go were introduced… sort of. They come from Yuggoth, and Lovecraft had already written a sonnet cycle called “Fungi From Yuggoth”. Lovecraft would allude to them a third and final time in At the Mountains of Madness as competitors of the crinoid Old Ones who caused their decline during the Jurassic.

    Anyway, the story is told in past tense in May 1930 by protagonist Albert Wilmarth, who teaches literature at Miskatonic University and doesn’t want to admit that he’s crazy. In May of 1928, he started getting mail from a Henry Akeley forcefully arguing for the truth of Vermont hill folklore about a pre-human race described as human-size, pinkish, crustacean-like, with a distinct head bearing multitudes of short antennae and “vast pairs of dorsal fins or membraneous wings and several sets of articulated limbs.” From an 1839 monograph collecting folklore from the oldest people in the state, Wilmarth described Puritans calling them familiars of the Devil, Scots-Irish linking them to the malign fairies and “little people” of the bogs and raths, and best of all, native Pennacook saying they’re extraterrestrials “from the Great Bear in the sky, and had mines in our earthly hills whence they took a kind of stone they could not get on any other world. They did not live here… They could not eat the things and animals of earth, but brought their own food from the stars.”
    He tried to tell the credulous these stories must be false, because they’re no different from the fairy delusions of Ireland and Wales, “belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded Mi-Go or ‘Abominable Snow-Men'”, etc, which they just tried to turn around on him as the folklore being evidence of the beings’s being real and active in the past.

    This same debate would later play out in real life between UFO believers and skeptics with no acknowledgement of Lovecraft.

    However, in Akeley’s description, the aliens aren’t associated with eerie flying objects, but “being able to live in interstellar space and fly through it on clumsy, powerful wings which have a way of resisting the ether”. Why Lovecraft chose to make it thus, I don’t know: the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment had discredited outer space being filled with light-bearing aether (and the rapid acceptance of special relatively after 1905 removed the theoretical need for something to propagate light waves), and by 1897 there were already alien sightings in the United States associated with spacecraft.
    Akeley said he found “great black stone with unknown hieroglyphics half worn away which I found in the woods on Round Hill, east of here; and after I took it home everything became different. If they think I suspect too much they will either kill me or take me off the earth to where they come from.” He offered to mail it and a phonograph recording, which Wilmarth accepted in the name of Science, though at the same time Akeley’s claims gave him a stereotypical Lovecraft scholar anxiety attack:

    I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connexions—Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R’lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L’mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum—and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way.

    I am almost glad that the letter and record and photographs are gone now—and I wish, for reasons I shall soon make clear, that the new planet beyond Neptune had not been discovered.

    Then came the record, made around 1 AM on “May-Eve—the hideous Sabbat-night of underground European legend”, “near the closed mouth of a cave where the wooded west slope of Dark Mountain rises out of Lee’s Swamp.”

    (A CULTIVATED MALE HUMAN VOICE)

    . . . is the Lord of the Woods, even to . . . and the gifts of the men of Leng . . . so from the wells of night to the gulfs of space, and from the gulfs of space to the wells of night, ever the praises of Great Cthulhu, of Tsathoggua, and of Him Who is not to be Named. Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!

    (A BUZZING IMITATION OF HUMAN SPEECH)

    Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

    (HUMAN VOICE)

    And it has come to pass that the Lord of the Woods, being . . . seven and nine, down the onyx steps . . . (tri)butes to Him in the Gulf, Azathoth, He of Whom Thou hast taught us marv(els) . . . on the wings of night out beyond space, out beyond th . . . to That whereof Yuggoth is the youngest child, rolling alone in black aether at the rim. . . .

    (BUZZING VOICE)

    . . . go out among men and find the ways thereof, that He in the Gulf may know. To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock. . . .

    (HUMAN VOICE)

    . . . (Nyarl)athotep, Great Messenger, bringer of strange joy to Yuggoth through the void, Father of the Million Favoured Ones, Stalker among. . . .

    It then transpired that Akeley’s attempt to ship the hieroglyphic stone was intercepted by a person whose eerie description could correspond to a Mi-Go in a mask and trenchcoat just as well as a human agent. Summer vacation dragged on, and on August 15 Wilmarth received a letter from Akeley claiming that three of his dogs had been shot, human and claw prints on the farm, his phone line cut and a tree felled across the safest road to town. We get it already, but Lovecraft gilds the lily with more letters, meant to raise tension but just making Akeley look like a farmer who’s gone violently insane, shooting up his home to the point of accidentally killing one of his own dogs. That said, he does convey that the aliens have strange bodies despite being as fragilely mortal as humans:

    It was dead, of course. One of the dogs had it, and I found it near the kennel this morning. I tried to save it in the woodshed to convince people of the whole thing, but it all evaporated in a few hours. Nothing left. You know, all those things in the rivers were seen only on the first morning after the flood. And here’s the worst. I tried to photograph it for you, but when I developed the film there wasn’t anything visible except the woodshed. What can the thing have been made of?

    Well, Wilmarth finally travels to visit his penpal on Wednesday, September 12 (shouldn’t he be teaching a class by now?), only after receiving a typed, not handwritten, letter in which violent anxiety has been reversed into a message that the aliens are friendly:

    What I had thought morbid and shameful and ignominious is in reality awesome and mind-expanding and even glorious—my previous estimate being merely a phase of man’s eternal tendency to hate and fear and shrink from the utterly different.

    Actually, they have never knowingly harmed men, but have often been cruelly wronged and spied upon by our species. There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on behalf of monstrous powers from other dimensions. It is against these aggressors—not against normal humanity—that the drastic precautions of the Outer Ones are directed.

    I’ll leave how that first quoted sentence relates to Lovecraft’s attitudes to other human cultures to the reader.
    But let’s backtrack to the phonograph. The aliens seem to be polytheists who believe in Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Shub-Niggurath, Azathoth, his Great Messenger Nyarlathotep and “Him Who is not to be Named.” Note that the source contradicts the subsequent Cthulhu Mythos, where each alien god has one or more “servitor races”. August Derleth assigned the Mi-Go to Hastur. Is there a term for the reading comprehension version of a malapropism?
    As repeatedly requested in the last letter, Wilmarth told no one where he was going and traveled with the phonograph and every photo and letter Akeley sent him… only differing in arriving by train in the closest town around 1 PM rather than the trustworthy letter’s suggested 10 PM. Why yes, this man IS too dumb to live. He’s met at the station by a Mr. Noyes, an urbane man whom Wilmarth nervously felt to have a familiar voice as it politely pumped him for information. Gosh, I wonder where he could have heard his voice before! At the house, Noyes told him Akeley was ready to see him, but he had this asthma attack you know, he can only talk in a whisper and he’ll be clumsy for a couple days with his feet all bandaged…
    OK, so he went to talk with Akeley and found him seated in a darkened room with “rigid, immobile expression and unwinking glassy stare”, a scarf high around his neck and a loose dressing gown too long to see his pants. He asked repeatedly for the return of everything he sent before starting to wax joyfully about Yuggoth, the nearest planet fully populated by this pan-cosmic genus of sapients of which others are but degenerate offshoots… it matters not that the Sun is no brighter than a star out there, for “They have other, subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples. Light even hurts and hampers and confuses them,” said the totally normal human singing their praises in a darkened room. He went on:

    You know they were here long before the fabulous epoch of Cthulhu was over, and remember all about sunken R’lyeh when it was above the waters. They’ve been inside the earth, too—there are openings which human beings know nothing of—some of them in these very Vermont hills—and great worlds of unknown life down there; blue-litten K’n-yan, red-litten Yoth, and black, lightless N’kai. It’s from N’kai that frightful Tsathoggua came

    The first part of this got contradicted just six months later when Lovecraft wrote AtMoM, while the latter stuff is a reference to “The Mound”, which he had ghostwritten for Zealia Bishop around January 1930.
    Wilmarth got spooked by his host insinuating that tomorrow they’d discuss their voyage to Yuggoth… yes you too, if you choose. “complete human bodies did not indeed make the trip, but that the prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill of the Outer Ones had found a way to convey human brains” in high-tech jars. The portable brain can be kept alive with liquid nutrients, electrodes reach through and connect with elaborate instruments capable of duplicating the three vital faculties of sight, hearing, and speech, then, on every planet covered by their civilisation, there are mechanical bodies it can be plugged into. His host then showed him shelves with a dozen brain cylinders: “Three humans, six fungoid beings who can’t navigate space corporeally, two beings from Neptune…” Hugh Man Akeley, who was totally normal, invited Wilmarth to plug any into a certain machine to communicate with, but “Don’t bother that fresh, shiny cylinder joined to the two testing instruments—the one with my name on it.” Wilmarth obeyed and the system spoke:

    “Do you realise what it means when I say I have been on thirty-seven different celestial bodies—planets, dark stars, and less definable objects—including eight outside our galaxy and two outside the curved cosmos of space and time? All this has not harmed me in the least. My brain has been removed from my body by fissions so adroit that it would be crude to call the operation surgery. The visiting beings have methods which make these extractions easy and almost normal—and one’s body never ages when the brain is out of it. The brain, I may add, is virtually immortal with its mechanical faculties and a limited nourishment supplied by occasional changes of the preserving fluid.

    Behold, the first uploaded Singularity nerd! Wilmarth though reacted fearfully, internally calling this things normal human beings weren’t meant to know and “blasphemous influences”, yet somehow he took a nap in the guest room before bolting upright and driving away terrified in a stolen old Ford, from Akeley’s garage. A sheriff’s posse found bullet holes, the dogs and livestock all missing with no having bought them, and Akeley vanished with the clothes Wilmarth saw him in discarded. There were no cylinders or other evidence, of course. But Wilmarth insists it was no dream that he was awakened by sounds of extraterrestrials entering the bedroom, while “a kind of obscure paralysis nevertheless kept me inert”. When he regained muscle control, he tried to find Akeley to flee with, but instead his flashlight found in the easy chair metallic clamps attached to… “the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.”
    Gosh, bet you didn’t see that coming. Seriously though, this story is fascinating in its precociousness. Here published in 1931 are aliens that have been operating on Earth so long that our science-ignorant ancestors identified them as Fair Folk (and yetis), who want to abduct people and do surgery on them. There’s a coverup involving human agents, and they’re in contact with American elites, though here it’s implied to be Lowell Observatory rather than the federal government.
    It’s also an early example of the claim that it’s not viable for human bodies to explore outer space, but by discarding the body with advanced technology your consciousness could explore the visible universe and beyond as an immortal that can plug in to different bodies.
    So this story prefigures by decades a chunk of real-world belief and a chunk of SF, and Lovecraft just kind of tossed it out there as opposed to being something he liked to revisit frequently once created (see Cthulhu, crinoid Old Ones). I’m impressed.

    • johan_larson says:

      The cover went to a Tarzan clone called “Tam, Son of the Tiger” by Otis Adelbert Kline.

      Whatever they were spending their money on, it wasn’t the cover art.

    • eremetic says:

      An Alcubierre drive could be described a bit poetically as “wings (with negative energy density) which have a way of resisting the aether” (general relativity is an aether theory), but if the term had existed and he had used it, you wouldn’t have scoffed at poor Howie’s scientific illiteracy, but rather praised his forward-thinkingness.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        I mean, OK, but an Alcubierre drive field attached to a five-foot long sapient being’s body still sounds like magic, while the UFO belief this story seems to prefigure (esp. in its scary “abduction” form) propagates specifically by not looking magical. That Greys don’t look like the Fay is vital to that false belief’s success.

        • Belisaurus Rex says:

          Why couldn’t the Fay have just changed their costumes? Are descriptions of the Fay really that different from descriptions of Greys?

        • eremetic says:

          They’d just need negative-mass wings, nothing wrong with that. Maybe they live in wormholes.

          Greys are absolutely demons/fairies.

    • Leafhopper says:

      Behold, the first uploaded Singularity nerd! Wilmarth though reacted fearfully, internally calling this things normal human beings weren’t meant to know

      I marvel at the point in “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” when “Swami Chandraputra” relates Randolph Carter’s utter horror at his dissolution of self:

      Faced with this realisation, Randolph Carter reeled in the clutch of supreme horror—horror such as had not been hinted even at the climax of that hideous night when two had ventured into an ancient and abhorred necropolis under a waning moon and only one had emerged. No death, no doom, no anguish can arouse the surpassing despair which flows from a loss of identity. Merging with nothingness is peaceful oblivion; but to be aware of existence and yet to know that one is no longer a definite being distinguished from other beings—that one no longer has a self—that is the nameless summit of agony and dread.

      Granted, he gets over it pretty quick, but to think Sam Harris strives to take you beyond the Ultimate Gate with a few taps on your touchscreen!

      • Kaitian says:

        I often wonder about the fears that are described in Lovecraft’s fiction and that of surrounding writers:
        Fear of the cosmos being vast and alien
        Fear of alien biology
        Fear of non human intelligence
        Fear of losing your identity as a proper white dude

        Is it the case that these things were horrifying to people of his time, but we as a civilisation have now gotten over it? As an analogy, consider the obsession with female purity in 19th century fiction, that almost nobody really groks nowadays. It’s not that we have become braver, it’s just that the question is no longer interesting in the same way.

        Or were these fears only ever shared by a handful of neurotic writers? I don’t know enough about the early 20th century to really tell. There were certainly stories that portrayed alien contact in a positive light. But the fact that Lovecraft stories have remained popular for so long, while those others are just curiosities, might mean that many people could (and still can?) identify with their concerns.

        Or am I looking at the stories all wrong? After all, a story about a mixed race Innsmouthian meeting a deep one and saying “hi gramps, how’s your black magic coming along?” wouldn’t be much of a story, certainly not a horror story. So maybe the fragile white dude protagonists are unreliable narrators. We do have the Conan stories as an example where characters are much more accustomed to all kinds of Weird stuff. On the other hand, Lovecraft and his real life opinions are pretty similar to those of his characters.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Fear of non human intelligence (…) but we as a civilisation have now gotten over it?

          points at AI risk people

          Fear of the cosmos being vast and alien

          I would describe this as “we are ignoring it” rather “but we as a civilisation have now gotten over it?”

        • Deiseach says:

          Fear of the cosmos being vast and alien
          Fear of alien biology
          Fear of non human intelligence
          Fear of losing your identity as a proper white dude

          Think of it this way: most of the stories happen where there’s a conflict between the modern, rational, scientific, optimistic world of progress and rationality and “stuff like this is folklore and mythology; maybe a few backwards poor white trash really do believe in monsters in the woods, but we know better”.

          Then it turns out that this stuff is real and really out there and you personally, educated modern scientific person, are being threatened by it.

          And the tools of modern scientific society don’t work – you can’t wish it away by saying “But this is the 20th century!” See the discussion about how do you kill a shoggoth – what if your guns don’t work, and your bombs don’t work? What do you do then? Here is a creature that, by the best of it (take the Mi-Go), is made out of physical material substance like you are, but is from an indescribably ancient civilisation that is so technologically advanced that (to borrow from Arthur C. Clarke) their science is indistinguishable from magic.

          If they want to turn you into a brain in a jar, you have little to no say about it. You can’t fight them, you can’t stop them, you can’t appeal to a shared system of ethics or morality, you’re like the most primitive uncontacted tribesman of your time faced with the full panoply of “gunboat diplomacy” where it’s spears against battleships.

          Or the Dunwich incident, where even though the Federal government succeeded for a time in bombing the reefs and driving off the Deep Ones, they didn’t and couldn’t destroy their strongholds and they are coming back, and their human agents are still in place.

          That’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that your comfortable cosy “science conquers all” world of modernity is a thin veneer of self-deception over the reality of the cold, pitiless forces of the universe which are expressed in/through entities that are either actively malevolent or regard humanity as we’d regard an outbreak of mould – clean it off and take back possession of the Earth for their purposes. We’re not even in the same relationship to them as spear-wielding aborigines to the societies that invented the atomic bomb. And there’s nothing we can do about it because even science can’t help us here, we are so backwards and ignorant by comparison.

          Everything you think you know, everything you have been taught about how the world and the physical laws of the universe work, is wrong. And the real way of things is out there in the darkness with teeth and tentacles to annihilate you body and soul. And you can’t understand it or make friends with it or bargain with it or be incorporated into it as any other than fuel for its ravening hunger. And all that permits us to continue functioning in the world we think we know is the blissful aura of pure ignorance, where we can write off stories of monsters in the woods and the hills as peasant superstition and tragedies as outbreaks of trailer trash degeneracy breaking out as violence:

          The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

          • John Schilling says:

            The worst case scenario is that your comfortable cosy “science conquers all” world of modernity is…

            Absolutely correct. And since Yuggothian science is more advanced than the Earthly kind, we get conquered and our brains all get schlorped out and put in jars, the end.

            The foundation of Lovecraftian horror isn’t the fear that science is wrong, it’s that science is right. Utterly, absolutely right to the exclusion of all else. Everything that we value is at best a cosmic accident that will likely as not be warped into unbearable perversion or outright extinction by some future stellar alignment or scientific discovery. It’s the horror of e.g. Watt’s “Blindsight”, where consciousness itself is a silly evolutionary defect of no scientific value, soon to be culled from what will henceforth be a universe of P-zombies.

          • Nick says:

            @John Schilling
            Yeah, I think you have the closer interpretation. The problem with the scientific optimism is that the science, in Lovecraft’s view, did not justify the optimism. Quite the opposite. It was the advances of his day that put the cosmic in cosmic horror.

          • mendax says:

            “The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ”
            ― H.P. Lovecraft

          • Kaitian says:

            I get what you’re saying, and I agree that this is what Lovecraft finds scary. But I just… don’t? In the 21st century, we know for sure that the universe is big, doesn’t care about us, and has a million ways of screwing us over that we can’t do anything about. The dangerous revelation that Lovecraft feared has happened, and has spread to educated classes everywhere, and life goes on as always. Some people believe we will eventually innovate our way into full control of the cosmos still, but most just don’t worry about it.

            I think Lovecraft is writing from a unique historical perspective, from a time when the scientific project stopped promising that Man would soon conquer all, and started revealing that the world is fundamentally beyond our understanding. But now, five generations have been raised knowing that the universe is spooky and weird, and we’re not terrified of that.

            I think even before the 20th century, it was understood that cosmic forces could wipe you out whenever. After all, scholars during the black death suspected that it was caused by an unfortunate alignment of the planets. So “a larger force might hurt you” was hardly new. But I think in the time from roughly 1850-1950, many people honestly believed that all things can be understood and all problems can be solved, and the cosmic horror of the time must be understood from that perspective.

            But then, why does it still speak to so many people?

          • Belisaurus Rex says:

            Why does it still speak to so many people? Maybe we just like the purple prose. Lovecraft should have gotten a job advertising exotic vacation destinations.

            Cut from Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath:
            “On the following morning the ship-captain led Carter through the onyx streets of Inganok, dark under their twilight sky. The inlaid doors and figured house-fronts, carven balconies and crystal-paned oriels, all gleamed with a sombre and polished loveliness; and now and then a plaza would open out with black pillars, colonnades, and the statues of curious beings both human and fabulous. Some of the vistas down long and unbending streets, or through side alleys and over bulbous domes, spires, and arabesqued roofs, were weird and beautiful beyond words; and nothing was more splendid than the massive height of the great central Temple of the Elder Ones with its sixteen carven sides, its flattened dome, and its lofty pinnacled belfry, overtopping all else, and majestic whatever its foreground. And always to the east, far beyond the city walls and the leagues of pasture land, rose the gaunt grey sides of those topless and impassable peaks across which hideous Leng was said to lie.
            The captain took Carter to the mighty temple, which is set with its walled garden in a great round plaza whence the streets go as spokes from a wheel’s hub. The seven arched gates of that garden, each having over it a carven face like those on the city’s gates, are always open; and the people roam reverently at will down the tiled paths and through the little lanes lined with grotesque termini and the shrines of modest gods. And there are fountains, pools, and basins there to reflect the frequent blaze of the tripods on the high balcony, all of onyx and having in them small luminous fish taken by divers from the lower bowers of ocean. When the deep clang from the temple’s belfry shivers over the garden and the city, and the answer of the horns and viols and voices peals out from the seven lodges by the garden gates, there issue from the seven doors of the temple long columns of masked and hooded priests in black, bearing at arm’s length before them great golden bowls from which a curious steam rises.”

            I think that tourists might like to visit.

          • Deiseach says:

            The foundation of Lovecraftian horror isn’t the fear that science is wrong, it’s that science is right.

            Exactly. Religion is a comforting fairy tale but a very thin blanket that we pull over our heads to hide from the scary thing in the wardrobe, but so is our present (at that date) understanding of science.

            Lovecraft was pitiless about “we’re not sciencing hard enough! we still have the old-fashioned ideas about Man being the pinnacle of evolution and progress being onwards and upwards unstoppable and that the universe is fundamentally understandable by our pitiful little monkey brains, and even worse that we can understand and control the forces of nature!”

            From the short story Hypnos, with a glancing reference to Einstein:

            Of our studies it is impossible to speak, since they held so slight a connexion with anything of the world as living men conceive it. They were of that vaster and more appalling universe of dim entity and consciousness which lies deeper than matter, time, and space, and whose existence we suspect only in certain forms of sleep—those rare dreams beyond dreams which come never to common men, and but once or twice in the lifetime of imaginative men. The cosmos of our waking knowledge, born from such an universe as a bubble is born from the pipe of a jester, touches it only as such a bubble may touch its sardonic source when sucked back by the jester’s whim. Men of learning suspect it little, and ignore it mostly. Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed. One man with Oriental eyes has said that all time and space are relative, and men have laughed. But even that man with Oriental eyes has done no more than suspect.

            For Lovecraft, the more we learn, the more we advance in knowledge, the more we are forced to realise how infinitesimal we are in the scale of the universe and how meaningless our existence is, and the only reason humanity hasn’t succumbed to despair and nihilism is because we’re too stupid to put things together, too sentimental and blinded by notions of ‘meaning’ and ‘good and evil’ and being able to control our own destinies.

          • Deiseach says:

            The dangerous revelation that Lovecraft feared has happened, and has spread to educated classes everywhere, and life goes on as always.

            And we treat it as we treat the knowledge of our own mortality: yeah yeah, some day I’m gonna die, but right now I have to go to work/play this new game/find a girl or boyfriend/enjoy my life.

            We don’t viscerally feel the sense of our own forthcoming and inescapable death, and we as a culture don’t really feel the import of “sure sure, big hostile universe, gonna smoosh us all some day, so what’s the new Netflix show?”

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            For Lovecraft, the more we learn, the more we advance in knowledge, the more we are forced to realise how infinitesimal we are in the scale of the universe and how meaningless our existence is, and the only reason humanity hasn’t succumbed to despair and nihilism is because we’re too stupid to put things together, too sentimental and blinded by notions of ‘meaning’ and ‘good and evil’ and being able to control our own destinies.

            See also the Total Perspective Vortex.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @Deiseach:

            Think of it this way: most of the stories happen where there’s a conflict between the modern, rational, scientific, optimistic world of progress and rationality and “stuff like this is folklore and mythology; maybe a few backwards poor white trash really do believe in monsters in the woods, but we know better”.

            Then it turns out that this stuff is real and really out there and you personally, educated modern scientific person, are being threatened by it.

            This. Science is both an objective thing and a human endeavor, performed by educated elites and psychologically received by the people as a whole. This lets it buttress classism: this attitude that “We believe in science, while the Irish lower classes believe in fairies,” — oops but then the lower classes internalize enough science to say they saw an alien spacecraft on a rural road at night, so now it’s “We know that if extraterrestrials are real, the cosmos is too vast for them to come research here, while white trash get their ideas from science fiction.”
            Well here came HPL, snooty fallen gentry, asking “What if elite belief in science is facile optimism? Imagine the white trash and colored folk knowing something that blasphemes science as we know it, not only forming false beliefs.”

            If they want to turn you into a brain in a jar, you have little to no say about it. You can’t fight them, you can’t stop them, you can’t appeal to a shared system of ethics or morality, you’re like the most primitive uncontacted tribesman of your time faced with the full panoply of “gunboat diplomacy” where it’s spears against battleships.

            This is something the AI risk people sort of get but can’t express logically. They get that by default a superior civilization or singular entity would have goals orthogonal to our flourishing or even existence, but think that they can appeal to utilitarianism as a shared system of morality, at least if humans get to build the superior thing rather than it coming from the stars.
            laughs in Nietzsche

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            The foundation of Lovecraftian horror isn’t the fear that science is wrong, it’s that science is right. Utterly, absolutely right to the exclusion of all else. Everything that we value is at best a cosmic accident that will likely as not be warped into unbearable perversion or outright extinction by some future stellar alignment or scientific discovery.

            You got it. Any philosophy of science that tries to incorporate science into an optimistic framework, from Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary philosophy on down, is human cognitive bias grasping at straws. There is only science, no morals as we know them. Love thy neighbor so much that thou spendeth nothing on luxuries for self, only mosquito nets for the least of them? Just an ephemeral sentimental superstructure on the amoral objective reality of science. There is no reward for you.

          • Mabuse7 says:

            Did Lovecraft never read Kierkegaard or Dostoevsky? He may have been too early for capital-E Existentialism but it seems like he may have gotten a lot out of the philosophy.

          • Leafhopper says:

            I haven’t seen HPL talk about the early existentialists, but my guess is that Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky’s religious obsessions and ideological fire would’ve left him cold. As horrific as he makes the uncaring cosmos sound in some of his stories, his response to the abyss was a lot… quieter than the existentialist response, if that makes sense.

            Frankly, I cannot conceive how any thoughtful man can really be happy. There is really nothing in the universe to live for, and unless one can dismiss thought and speculation from his mid, he is liable to be engulfed by the very immensity of creation. It is vastly better that he should amuse himself with religion, or any other convenient palliative to reality which comes to hand. … There is much relief from the burden of life to be derived from many sources. To the man of high animal spirits, there is the mere pleasure of being alive; the Joi de vivre, as our Gallick friends term it. To the credulous there is religion and its paradisal dreams. To the moralist, there is a certain satisfaction in right conduct. To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth. To the person of cultivated taste, there are the fine arts. To the man of humour, there is the sardonic delight of spying out pretensions and incongruities of life. To the poet there is the ability and privilege to fashion a little Arcadia in his fancy, wherein he may withdraw from the sordid reality of mankind at large. In short, the world abounds with simple delusions which we may call “happiness”, if we be but able to entertain them.

            I imagine he would’ve said “well, for Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, God is the convenient palliative, for Nietzsche it’s the Overman, for Camus it’s the fight against the absurd, for Sartre it’s, I don’t know, Marxism, but none of that stuff is for me, I prefer my self-education and Yog-Sothothery.”

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          I often wonder about the fears that are described in Lovecraft’s fiction and that of surrounding writers:
          Fear of the cosmos being vast and alien
          Fear of alien biology
          Fear of non human intelligence
          Fear of losing your identity as a proper white dude

          Is it the case that these things were horrifying to people of his time, but we as a civilisation have now gotten over it?

          Some people in the 21st century have expressed fear and anxiety about the cosmos being more inconveniently vast than optimistic SF and non-fiction futurism led us to believe. Before futurists talked about mind uploading, they talked about being able to take Moon vacations in our flabby human bodies.
          Fear of non-human intelligence and fear of “losing your identity as [racial sneer]” are with us today as fear that AI will obviously be of godlike intelligence but not necessarily a Friendly utilitarian, or being out-competed by Ems, etc.

          As an analogy, consider the obsession with female purity in 19th century fiction, that almost nobody really groks nowadays. It’s not that we have become braver, it’s just that the question is no longer interesting in the same way.

          points at 4chan
          Shakespeare depicted normal male characters as obsessed with female purity too. Maybe hegemonic feminism in the universities where fiction writers are trained just suppressed interest in this among that class?

          There were certainly stories that portrayed alien contact in a positive light. But the fact that Lovecraft stories have remained popular for so long, while those others are just curiosities, might mean that many people could (and still can?) identify with their concerns.

          I mean, prose space opera is just curiosities because it got replaced by Star Trek and Star Wars. Both are too often blandly banal about the differences between human and extraterrestrial psychology. Think of the USS Enterprise boldly going across the vast voids of interstellar space to “two gangster planets and a cowboy world” in the original series, or an original human culture of bumpy foreheads in the later ones.
          (I don’t want to sound like an anti-fan here: it also did some stuff worthy of “Doc” Smith and other prose authors who inspired it, like learning to accept the Gorn or a blind scientist’s love for an alien who was sanity-blasting to look at).

          So maybe the fragile white dude protagonists are unreliable narrators. We do have the Conan stories as an example where characters are much more accustomed to all kinds of Weird stuff.

          Indeed. A Weird Tales scholar-hero works himself up into a panic attack over the intellectual implications of what he’s seeing, while Conan is a homicidal working-class fellow whose reaction to a being like Yag-Kosha (whose people can be seen as functionally equivalent to the Mi-Go, pre-human immigrants to Earth with reference to lost aether wings) is pure empathy. Too much book-learnin’ addles the brain.

          • Deiseach says:

            To be fair, Yag-Kosha is a much more sympathetic character and presented as the victim of human brutality; by comparison, the Mi-Go are sneaky (at best) and actively working to harm the humans.

            I feel Conan’s response to the Mi-Go would not be one of pure empathy, but a yard of cold steel through the gizzard (once he worked out where they kept their gizzards) 🙂

          • John Schilling says:

            Also being fair, Lovecraft has the explorer-scientists of “At the Mountains of Madness” recognizing the Old Ones as fellow explorer-scientists and empathizing with their plight, even as the Old Ones were of a hideously nonhuman appearance and had just ruthlessly killed some of their human colleagues.

          • Deiseach says:

            Lovecraft has the explorer-scientists of “At the Mountains of Madness” recognizing the Old Ones as fellow explorer-scientists and empathizing with their plight

            That part delighted me, particularly as it shows Lovecraft able to rise above his prejudices, at least imaginatively as an author – up to then the Old One have been described as monsters and in terms of repugnance and horror, as unnatural and terribly different, and then it swings right round to “they’re fellow beings with us” – and it probably also ties in with Lovecraft’s Cosmic Horror – faced with the shoggoths and what they have become/who they are sponsored by, we and the Old Ones have much more in common; we are both fellow-beings, fellow-spaients, fellow-organic mortals, menanced by the powers from beyond, that will extirpate us mercilessly and in a hideously Other manner.

            Their science and technology was much more advanced than ours (and even in the racial degeneration still was), but it was on a model recognisable and understandable to us, and both our world-views could not protect or save us when the forces from Outside broke through.

            Poor devils! After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellish jest on them—as it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter drag up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar waste—and this was their tragic homecoming.

            They had not been even savages—for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch—perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defence against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia . . . poor Lake, poor Gedney . . . and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last—what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star-spawn—whatever they had been, they were men!

            …Of the whereabouts of that less conceivable and less mentionable nightmare—that foetid, unglimpsed mountain of slime-spewing protoplasm whose race had conquered the abyss and sent land pioneers to re-carve and squirm through the burrows of the hills—we could form no guess; and it cost us a genuine pang to leave this probably crippled Old One—perhaps a lone survivor—to the peril of recapture and a nameless fate.

            As an aside, this part of the story is unintentionally (though it’s hard to know with Lovecraft, he does sometimes show evidence of a particular sense of humour) funny as it gives rise to the mental image of the Old Ones in stetsons and spurs with the big iron on (what passes for) their hips:

            Thereafter the sculptures shewed a period in which shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the American west were tamed by cowboys.

          • John Schilling says:

            as it gives rise to the mental image of the Old Ones in stetsons and spurs with the big iron on (what passes for) their hips:

            And being thrown from a bucking Shoggoth at the Old One Rodeo. I really didn’t need that mental image. No, wait, yes I did. Thank you.

          • Deiseach says:

            And being thrown from a bucking Shoggoth at the Old One Rodeo

            But of course! Plainly there are going to be more and less expert shoggoth tamers, and how else will you judge a fellow crinoid-headed vegetable lifeform’s abilities without a practical demonstration? 🙂

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            But of course! Plainly there are going to be more and less expert shoggoth tamers, and how else will you judge a fellow crinoid-headed vegetable lifeform’s abilities without a practical demonstration?

            Yeah, how can you not like the crinoid men with images like that? Shame about the science they did on your colleagues and dogs…

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        Granted, he gets over it pretty quick, but to think Sam Harris strives to take you beyond the Ultimate Gate with a few taps on your touchscreen!

        I’m not sure I grokked that. I understood it as the Swami/Carter is basically bringing up a Religions 101 understanding of Buddhism and Hinduism and calling Nirvana “peaceful oblivion” and therefore an understandable goal, while calling merging with Brahman “the nameless summit of agony and dread.” Which is pretty rich coming from a Swami, but he did seem to get over it pretty quick.

        • Leafhopper says:

          I don’t know enough about Buddhism to know the difference between Nirvana and merging with Brahman, but I interpreted “peaceful oblivion” as cessation of existence and “to know . . . that one no longer has a self” as something akin to the experience of selflessness for which at least some meditation practices aim. I’ve never experienced that, but Sam Harris et al seem to regard it as rather pleasant and calming, ergo my amusement at Lovecraft’s somewhat hysterical interpretation of it.

    • Belisaurus Rex says:

      “So this story prefigures by decades a chunk of real-world belief and a chunk of SF, and Lovecraft just kind of tossed it out there as opposed to being something he liked to revisit frequently once created”

      THEY accidentally let this story slip through, but after it was published THEY told Lovecraft he could never revisit the idea again. If anyone would accidentally stumble into a centuries old conspiracy of humans collaborating with unknown alien intelligences…

      This does bring up a strange tone choice in Lovecraft’s works that I had never been able to identify before. The humans in contact with strange beings are always cultists or loners, but never important politicians or connected people. Compare with A Colder War, where the US and USSR are trying to use Lovecraftian horrors against each other. The closest Lovecraft ever gets to having the hidden magic world intersect with the normal world is in Charles Dexter Ward, where Civil War veterans end up getting entangled with the supernatural.

      Lovecraft makes a conscious effort to keep his horrors hidden in out of the way locations or small towns. I don’t think that this was a product of the times either–in Dracula, Dracula comes to London and most of the horror is the idea that this supernatural being is leaving Transylvania to come terrorize the civilized world. In Lovecraft, as far as I can remember, there is never any fear that some nameless horror will take up residence in NYC (do you count Red Hook?).

      • Kaitian says:

        I think there are two reasons for this: first, many Lovecraft stories are classic adventure tales, where the protagonists visit far off places and discover their secrets. Some others are haunted house stories, which are also conventionally about remote places.

        And secondly, one of Lovecraft’s main themes is that the alien powers don’t care about conventional human affairs. To Cthulhu, there’s really no difference between NYC and Arkham.

        I guess Lovecraft as a person also didn’t much care for politics, and may just not have wanted to write about it. He’s also kind of nosey: In most of the stories, a non human is just minding its own business and certainly not aiming to terrorize anyone. But suddenly some explorer stumbles in and freaks out. And we’re supposed to side with the explorer?

        Although it is somewhat implied that the cultists seeking to attract the great old ones will cause some civilisation ending disaster if they succeed, so it’s not like the capital is completely unaffected.

      • Deiseach says:

        Part of it is the sense of stagnation and degeneracy that Lovecraft uses to give atmosphere to his stories, which doesn’t work so well with modern urban areas full of commerce and crowded streets and the ‘bright lights, big city’ mindset.

        You can do something with urban anomie and the atomised nature of living in such huge impersonal conglomerations of millions of people, and many horror/dark fantasy writers have done such, but that was never Lovecraft’s style. He preferred the idea of the glorious past which has faded and even become a twisted, perverted thing – the descendants of the heroic pre-Revolutionary great families dwindling down to a handful of inbred rustics who clung on to the Puritan legacy of their forefathers only by the night side of the witch crazes and tomes on demonology (how often does he reference Cotton Mather?) and whose link to the historic past is through the survival of cults and dark worship of the Great Old Ones.

        there is never any fear that some nameless horror will take up residence in NYC (do you count Red Hook?).

        Pickman’s Model, with ghouls in the subway:

        There was a study called “Subway Accident”, in which a flock of the vile things were clambering up from some unknown catacomb through a crack in the floor of the Boylston Street subway and attacking a crowd of people on the platform. Another shewed a dance on Copp’s Hill among the tombs with the background of today. Then there were any number of cellar views, with monsters creeping in through holes and rifts in the masonry and grinning as they squatted behind barrels or furnaces and waited for their first victim to descend the stairs.

        One disgusting canvas seemed to depict a vast cross-section of Beacon Hill, with ant-like armies of the mephitic monsters squeezing themselves through burrows that honeycombed the ground. Dances in the modern cemeteries were freely pictured, and another conception somehow shocked me more than all the rest—a scene in an unknown vault, where scores of the beasts crowded about one who held a well-known Boston guide-book and was evidently reading aloud. All were pointing to a certain passage, and every face seemed so distorted with epileptic and reverberant laughter that I almost thought I heard the fiendish echoes. The title of the picture was, “Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow Lie Buried in Mount Auburn”.

        If we remember that ghouls eat the bodies of the dead, that last passage reads rather queasily.

        Mostly, though, it’s in the back hills and forgotten small towns, where the people have mouldered into a state of arrested development as progress has washed over the land and left their villages high and dry, or in the run-down areas of cities where the older parts have become slums tenanted by the melting-pot of immigrants and the racial and class divides mean that the educated better-off WASP section of society neither knows nor cares what happens in the dirty streets and backalleys where the action of the stories takes place, as in “The Haunter of the Dark” where the part of Providence where the Starry Wisdom church is located is Federal Hill, and it’s become a slum area full of Italian immigrants as the original inhabitants have moved out and upwards to better places and things.

        • Nick says:

          There’s also The Dunwich Horror. Dunwich is a backwater town, but nearby Miskatonic University is not; it’s a major and prestigious university on par with Harvard.

    • HeelBearCub says:

      The cultural critic explanation of when/why we like horror/disaster stories maps so well onto this ongoing SSC exploration of Lovecraft.

      • Nick says:

        You know, I’ve heard a few people lately (e.g. quoted here) say their consumption has tended towards apocalyptic stories with the advent of covid-19 and the quarantine. But mine hasn’t; I’ve been reading the same old stuff. Am I the outlier here, or are they?

        • bullseye says:

          I’ve been binging the Simpsons, and yesterday I saw Cats.

        • Kaitian says:

          I can imagine that a lot of people are interested in disaster and apocalypse stories right now, to compare them with their own experience or just to wallow. Personally I’m on the “same as before” side. I’ve just been watching a lot more operas / shows thanks to the many online options being offered.

      • Belisaurus Rex says:

        I think it is random. Plenty of fiction deals with breakdown of society. Lovecraft does not match well to widespread civilization collapse.

        I talked briefly about Camus’ “The Plague” on here (and read it in the past month for obvious reasons), but it did not seem to resonate with anyone. We read plague stories during a plague almost because of peer pressure, because we think it is what we should be doing, but they are not what we really care about so we soon lose interest and go back to reading other works. Over a longer quarantine (it’s only been a month so far?) I expect interest in plague books and movies to decrease, not increase.

        Edit: That being said, an increase in the amount of new plague-related fiction coming out might skew things.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          That’s not what the cultural critique says about horror/disaster stories though. The claim is that we are interested in these things as a mirror on what we fear today. Thus, horror is an evergreen topic to explore.

          I’m only saying that the SSC hive mind is currently all frightened about the same event, a seemingly undefeatable and indefatigable horror that, though we would like to defeat by conventional means, can really only be dealt with by hiding far away from it, and even then …

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            I’m only saying that the SSC hive mind is currently all frightened about the same event, a seemingly undefeatable and indefatigable horror that, though we would like to defeat by conventional means, can really only be dealt with by hiding far away from it, and even then …

            “Social distancing” (possibly undiagnosed autism) is pretty much the first biographical detail of HPL’s anyone learns, with the second being “Except that time he married Sonia Greene, moved to NYC, still had few face-to-face friends, and complained about how hard it was to afford groceries when unemployed.”
            I could be doing Clark Ashton Smith reviews instead, but maybe the times biased me.

  3. Scott Alexander says:

    https://www.dana.org/article/go-and-nogo/ mentions a psychometric test called the “choose-a vs. avoid-b task”, meant to study go vs. no-go pathways in the brain. Does anyone know if there’s a publicly available version of this, or a description of exactly how to make one?

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      We found a striking effect of the different dopamine medications on this positive versus negative learning bias, consistent with predictions from our computer model of the learning process. While on placebo, participants performed equally well at choose-A and avoid-B test choices. But when their dopamine levels were increased, they were more successful at choosing the most positive symbol A and less successful at avoiding B. Conversely, lowered dopamine levels were associated with the opposite pattern: worse choose-A performance but more-reliable avoid-B choices. Thus the dopamine medications caused participants to learn more or less from positive versus negative outcomes of their decisions

      Am I missing the part where they actually tell us the size of the effect, or the number of participants, or any quantitative data whatsoever?

    • Lambert says:

      @Scott Alexander

      This sort of thing? doi: 10.1126/science.1102941
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421749/
      doi:10.1037/0882-7974.23.2.392 

      Or this doi: 10.3758/s13415-014-0250-6

  4. Simon says:

    I believe it’s very likely that reusable silicone masks are highly effective at preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Widespread use of these mask could play a large part in reducing effective transmission rates without requiring severe social-distancing measures.
    LessWrong post: The Hammer and the Mask – A call to action

  5. johan_larson says:

    Welcome again to Hollywood. Your producer wants a proposal for a film featuring the US Air Force pest management staff. Square-jawed heroes or lovable lunatics, your choice.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      It’s a dark comedy where US Air Force pest control comes to realize that the rodents they’re killing are sapient beings engaged in guerrilla warfare against human hegemony. Due to low USAF physical fitness and combat training standards, they have to call in Army Rangers as the rodents start trouncing them. But if you think about it, weren’t the cute rodents fighting what they saw as human oppressors right?

    • fibio says:

      Die Ratte

      Sergeant John Truman is ex-special forces, demoted to pest control after a black ops mission went badly wrong and he was falsely accused of getting his squad killed. Haunted by ghosts of the past, Truman is obsessed with his job, ensuring that his section is the cleanest post in the US army much to the amusement of his lackadaisical peers. When his former CO visits for an inspection, Truman goes off the reservation to ensure that there is not a single pest remains on base, utilizing all his skills and an alarming amount of heavy weaponry to kill his arch nemesis. The Rat.

      Basically, standard action movie but the enemy is always the same adorable rat that inexplicably survives traps, gunfire, tanks and finally an artillery strike.

    • Leafhopper says:

      James Herbert’s The Rats, but in NYC. Air Force can be connected to the rats’ origin in nuclear test fallout, or something. Played for black comedy.

    • MartMart says:

      Just rewrite naked lunch slightly.

    • toastengineer says:

      Tangentially related, but:

      Minimum Education:
      … GED with 15 college credits, or GED

      What?

      • johan_larson says:

        For enlisted positions, the US Air Force prefers to recruit people who have actual high school diplomas. The GED exam is supposed to be the equivalent of a high school diploma, but isn’t really, so the Air Force is reluctant to accept it. But they sometimes do, particularly for applicants who do very well on the military written tests or have additional qualifications beyond high school (such as successful completion of college-level courses).

        https://www.airforce.com/frequently-asked-questions/academic/can-i-join-the-air-force-with-a-ged

        • bullseye says:

          So, “High school diploma or GED with 15 college credits” would make sense. What it actually says is:
          “High school diploma, GED with 15 college credits, or GED“.

  6. mikk14 says:

    I have written a post on my research on how to evaluate the distance covered by a spreading event on a network: http://www.michelecoscia.com/?p=1759. The one liner version is that I figured out how to generalize the Euclidean distance between two vector in the case your dimensions are not all equal to each other (as in Euclidean space) but they are correlated to each other via a complex pattern. It’s practically a discrete version of the Mahalanobis distance.

    This was research that I actually started years ago, and it just occurred to me that it might be a useful tool to analyze some patterns in how COVID is spreading through the global social and airline network. If someone has good data, they’re very welcome to use my code and/or get in touch.

  7. Le Maistre Chat says:

    More about differences between HP Lovecraft’s fiction and the “Mythos” fandom:
    You’ve read the eponymous “Nyarlethotep”, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, etc. where Ol’ Nyarl appears as a black man who was once a Pharaoh, right? So why is it that if you do an image search for his name, most of the results are a three-legged entity with a tentacle instead of a head? Someone investigated that question. It turns out to be a difficult mystery that involves demonstrably false testimony by the creator of the Call of Cthulhu RPG and a shadowy woman named Lisa Free who appears to argue with herself in the comments sections.

    • Deiseach says:

      So why is it that if you do an image search for his name, most of the results are a three-legged entity with a tentacle instead of a head?

      I have indeed seen some art like that, and wondered, because Nyarlehotep (nearly) always appears in human form.

      So it’s down to game art by person or persons who thought “Yeah, better put Moar Tentacles ‘cos otherwise how will potential players know this is supposed to be Chthulu World?” Just one more example of “the illustrator never read the text but was just given a shortlist of ‘need this included’ to work from”?

      EDIT: I had written the above before reading the article and it looks like I was correct:

      Richard Luong, illustrator for Sandy’s newest Lovecraft game (Cthulhu Wars) remembered the following when asked what inspired his three-legged avatar: “Sandy came to me with a short description of characteristics he wanted to make sure to have: three legs, no face, not too human hands.”

      So yep, illustrator gets given short list of “draw this” without ever reading the source material. And there is nothing in Lovecraft’s “The Thing In The Moonlight” piece to link the tentacle-cone-headed howler with Nyarlahotep, so it looks like a kludging together of the game studio’s various illustrations via Derleth’s version of things, with a cursory reference back to Lovecraft as a figleaf.

    • John Schilling says:

      Wait, it took her that much detective work when any gamer could have just told her, “Call Larry DiTillio and ask him where he got that one”?

      Because, yeah, obviously. Nyarlathotep famously has bignum masks, of which the Black Pharaoh is only one and Lovecraft never really fleshed out the others. But “Masks of Nyarlathotep” needs half a dozen or so in fairly specific detail for storytelling and gameplay. So, pick a few bits of imagery from somewhere in the broader Mythos canon, add whatever it takes to turn it into a concrete description, call that one the “Bloody Tongue”, and throw it on the cover on account of the spectacle.

  8. Mellivora says:

    I have been reading SSC for some time, and it has inspired me to finally start my own blog. I thought some people here might find it interesting, due to its related content.

    https://atlaspragmatica.com/

    One post that might be of specific interest is titled “Rethinking Education”, which is some musings on the viability of homeschooling, inspired by Laszlo Polgar “Raise a Genius”, and HPMOR.

    My latest post is the first in a series that will be a deep dive into Universal Basic Income. I’ll be posting the next one on Wednesday at 18:00 BST (17:00 GMT)

  9. anton says:

    About the thrive survive thing, I guess one problem I can see is that every controversial action has trade-offs so every possible course of action can be rationalized as coming from a thrive or survive mentality. For example one could argue that if republicans see themselves as barely being able to make ends meet then any damage to the economy is an unacceptable existential risk, and so some old-fashioned senicide is just doing-what-you-had-to.

    • TheStoryGirl says:

      I’ll go you one further:

      I think Scott’s survive vs thrive theory actually predicts both rightist concern about the economy and leftist signalling by social distancing warriors.

      From Scott’s essay:

      …My hypothesis is that rightism is what happens when you’re optimizing for surviving an unsafe environment, leftism is what happens when you’re optimized for thriving in a safe environment.

      We’re actually still in a super-safe environment.

      Compared to a civilization-ending zombie apocalypse or even a COVID-1999?

      COVID-19 is an inconvenience.

      Maybe only barely an inconvenience.

      The food supply chain is functionally undisturbed and all water/power/sewer utilities are still functioning, everywhere.

      Moreover, in 2020, the infrastructure provided by the internet has removed almost every serious threat to most (?) middle and upper-class Americans. Most or many can work from home, stay informed (and thus not be left to wonder if they should be literally running for the hills), minimize risk entirely by shopping remotely and having things delivered, stay meaningfully socially connected, and even stave off boredom.

      The kind of social distancing measures advocated by American leftists are only possible due to this vast abundance, and to a lesser extent, faith in the government to provide.

      Meanwhile, rightists whose business models don’t support work from home and/or who have little faith in the government to replace business losses see the lockdown’s impact on the economy as an existential threat to themselves, even greater than COVID-19.

      And most rightists don’t have a platform to talk about it.

      It’s worth remembering that virtually every mainstream article about COVID-19 was authored by a high-status individual who was likely already working from home long before COVID-19. It’s easy to bellow that human lives are so much more important than the economy when one’s own survival doesn’t depend on one’s brick-and-mortar workplace being open and/or the health of the short-to-medium-term economy.

      It’s almost certain that, if facing enough financial peril, the owner of a little dress shop, or the furloughed AMC assistant theater manager, would prefer to take their chances, especially if they live in a region with meager unemployment benefits. But The Atlantic doesn’t publish articles by owners of little dress shops or AMC assistant theater managers.

      Rigorous social distancing is a luxury. Demonstrating one’s ability to comply and advocating for it to continue “as long as it takes” signals socioeconomic status and social consciousness.

      As Scott pointed out, that kind of signalling only occurs in very safe environments.

      Scott’s theory stands.

    • Loriot says:

      The problem is that a theory that predicts everything predicts nothing. The theory is only useful if its predictions come true *as interpreted by someone before the event*. You don’t get to rationalize your predictions to the opposite once you already know the answers.

  10. Aapje says:

    What better to distract from Colvimort than Dutch fixed expressions?

    ‘bakbeest’ = box beast

    Huge thing (usually relative to others of its kind). May refer to an animal that was fattened, by being offered a full feedbox all day.

    ‘bakvis’ = baking fish

    Pubescent girl. Comes from German and first referred to a fish that was too big to be thrown back, but too small to be prepared on its own. So it was baked along with a bunch of other similar fish. German students in the 16th century then adopted this as a joke translation for baccalaureus (bachelor). This then somehow became used for pubescent girls. This meaning appears in a 1775 book by Goethe.

    ‘Een balletje opgooien’ = Throwing up a ball

    Carefully bringing something up, to see if people would accept it. Can be used for a situation like this: I casually suggested to my girlfriend that a threesome might improve our relationship, but her response made clear that she wasn’t be interested.

    ‘Bankroet’ = Bank soot

    Bankrupt. A derivation of the French ‘banqueroute’, which itself derives from the Italian ‘banca rotta,’ which literally means broken bench. This refers to the benches that bankers would sit on while plying their trade. Legend has it that the bench would be broken if the banker was insolvent, although this is likely a myth.

    ‘Het beste beentje voorzetten’ = Putting your best leg forward

    Doing the best you can.

    ‘Belofte maakt schuld’ = Promise makes debt

    Once you make a promise, you have to keep it, no less than if it was a debt.

    ‘Een kat in het nauw maakt rare sprongen’ = A cornered cat makes weird jumps

    If you leave someone no way out, they will make unexpected moves.

    ‘Vertrouwen komt te voet en gaat ter paard’ = Trust comes by foot and leaves by horse

    People lose trust far quicker than they gain it.

    ‘De beste stuurlui staan aan wal’ = The best helmsmen stand ashore

    It’s easy to criticize other people’s work when you’re not the one doing it.

    ‘Beter een goede buur dan een verre vriend’ = Better to have a good neighbor than a far-away friend

    You can expect more help from people near you than those far away.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      ‘bakvis’ = baking fish

      Pubescent girl. Comes from German and first referred to a fish that was too big to be thrown back, but too small to be prepared on its own. So it was baked along with a bunch of other similar fish.

      I’ve had about enough of your cannibalism harem anime, mister.

    • Anteros says:

      I’m wondering how many of these expression are in common usage, or at least would be familiar to the majority of the Dutch population. Are any thought of as old-fashioned? Would the average 20 year old in Holland know most of them?

      • Aapje says:

        I only select expressions that are in common use, although some may be considered old-fashioned, but that is a tricky assessment. Youths commonly have their own language, but seem to adopt a more traditional vocabulary as they age, so words don’t necessarily die out when seen as old-fashioned by younger people.

        A substantial percentage of Dutch 20 year old’s has a migrant background. My guess is that a native Dutch 20 year old is going to know 2/3rds or so.

      • Gelaarsd Schaap says:

        25 year old here.

        I recognize all of them. Only the ones about trust on horseback and having a good neighbour I would not have remembered by myself. The rest is very common in my experience, especially de beste stuurlui staan aan wal.

    • The Nybbler says:

      ‘Een balletje opgooien’ = Throwing up a ball

      There’s a few similar expressions in English, such as “sending up a trial balloon” or “running it up the flagpole”. “Putting a finger in the air” (another one not safe to search on Bing) is not quite the same but related in that all have to do with figuring out wind direction.

      ‘Een kat in het nauw maakt rare sprongen’ = A cornered cat makes weird jumps

      In English, it’s rats; the standard advice (whether figurative or literal) is “don’t corner a rat”, because it will attack.

    • bullseye says:

      This then somehow became used for pubescent girls.

      It makes sense to me. They’re both in-between-sized.

  11. viVI_IViv says:

    Some people have brought up that my thrive vs. survive theory of the political spectrum does an unusually bad job predicting current events, especially the thing where Democrats mostly want to maintain lockdown and Republicans mostly want to take their chances.

    Is it just because the lockdown puts pressure on the federal government, which is especially bad for a president seeking reelection in a few months? Never let your deep-seated ideological principles get in the way of partisanship, I guess.

    More charitably, the working class Trumpist base is probably more financially affected by the lockdown than the left-leaning intellectual class who have more secure jobs that can be done from home.

    • DeWitt says:

      More charitably, the working class Trumpist base is probably more financially affected by the lockdown than the left-leaning intellectual class who have more secure jobs that can be done from home.

      I keep seeing this talking point come up, but has anyone quantified it? I have no idea what to believe.

      • keaswaran says:

        The traditional stereotype is that right-wing parties in all countries rely on shopkeepers and petty bourgeois landlords as their base, while left-wing parties rely on civil servants and educated professionals as their base, with the manipulations of the working class depending on how religion, nationality, caste, and other issues break down in the local polity. The shopkeeper/landlord vs civil servant/educated professional really seems to exactly match closed down vs work-from-home.

    • AlesZiegler says:

      I am too lazy to find sources, but I am pretty sure that I had read from multiple angles that Trump voters have higher incomes than Clinton voters, and whole “shift to working class” by Republicans consisted of more working class people voting for Trump in comparison to Romney, not in comparison to Democrats.

      Also Republican voters are older and thus at more risk of dying from COVID, and older people have generally more secure sources of income in a recession than younger people.

      • EchoChaos says:

        I am too lazy to find sources, but I am pretty sure that I had read from multiple angles that Trump voters have higher incomes than Clinton voters

        Almost certainly true. What people usually mean is that white Clinton voters have higher income than white Trump voters, which is also true as Clinton and subsequent Democrats have done better with suburban and urban whites and shed rural and union whites.

      • Aapje says:

        @AlesZiegler

        The 90% of black voters that vote Democrat really pull down the average for them. Also, Democrats have more young voters and young people have smaller incomes. The latter is deceptive, because a low income student is typically not working class.

        • eric23 says:

          That said, Republicans have more elderly voters, who tend to have small incomes but a higher standard of living due to savings. So it balances out.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          Ok, students are not working class, but those who are old enough to vote are obviously extremely vulnerable to adverse economic effects of a lockdown. Entering job market during a massive recession is not easy. And poor black people are affected by recession just as badly as poor white people probably.

          All I am saying is that narrow self interest does not explain why Democrats are more enthusiastic about lockdowns than Republicans. On the contrary, I think that balance of evidence suggests that if positions of parties would be driven by crude interests of theirs voters, Republicans should be more supportive.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            Entering job market during a massive recession is not easy.

            Yes, but they can afford to wait months, even a year or two maybe. Don’t these students often spend a year traveling the world getting drunk/laid/high finding themselves after college, anyway?

            And poor black people are affected by recession just as badly as poor white people probably.

            But regardless of race, the chronically unemployed/unemployable tend to vote Dem if they vote at all. These people don’t have any job to go back to, so they aren’t really affected. If anything, the more the lockdown lasts, the more emergency unemployment benefits they will get.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            Yes, but they can afford to wait months, even a year or two maybe. Don’t these students often spend a year traveling the world getting drunk/laid/high finding themselves after college, anyway?

            Wow, this is some unexpectedly low quality content here. I think it should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about the world that many people after college cannot afford that.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            Wow, this is some unexpectedly low quality content here.

            I have a more big-brain comment above to make up for it 😛

            I think it should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about the world that many people after college cannot afford that.

            It’s not so obvious to me, but I can’t actually find any good statistic on students taking gap years, so I guess I’ll have to retract the claim for now.

      • eric23 says:

        IIRC the strongest correlation is that Trump voters are self-employed. And self-employed people do seem to be hurting more in this economic crisis.

      • keaswaran says:

        Small business owners are Republican. Professionals are Democrats.

    • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

      This was more or less my reasoning: if thrive-survive is relevant to politics, it’s (possibly much) weaker than partisanship and the effect of elite opinion. Trump appears to be anti-lockdowns so his supporters are anti lockdown and his opponents are pro-lockdown.

      I don’t know how well this holds for non-US countries where right wing governments (e.g. the UK) have been more consistent in their pro-lockdown messaging. My impression is still that the most prominent lockdown opponents are right-wing, usually for economic reasons.

      • Matt M says:

        Trump is not anti-lockdown. If he was, he would come out today and say “The federal government recommends ending the lockdowns.” Which he has not.

        Trump is pro him-getting-to-be-the-decider. Which causes him to push back on a lot of people who clearly want to have more draconian lockdowns than he’d like, or want to have them last longer than he prefers. But right now, if it was entirely up to him and nobody else had anything to say about it, he would decide to have lockdowns.

        • albatross11 says:

          Also, I think Trump is pretty keen on not catching the blame for the lockdowns, since they’re actually pretty unpopular and even the people who support them (me included) recognize that they’re an unpleasant and expensive necessity. Since the governors are mostly in charge of deciding when/how to lock down, I think Trump intends to let them also carry the popularity costs for the lockdowns.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          But right now, if it was entirely up to him and nobody else had anything to say about it, he would decide to have lockdowns

          How do we know that?

          • Matt M says:

            Because he’s still out there saying “For now we need to have lockdowns?”

            I guess it’s possible he doesn’t really mean that, but for all of his other faults, Trump is usually pretty clear and direct when it comes to telling you what he’s thinking…

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Because we’re still having lockdowns in places outside of NY and he’s not lambasting them. I’m pretty sure Trump is in favor of the lockdowns. I strongly disagree with him about this.

            ETA: damnit Matt, would you quit doing that?

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            Because he’s still out there saying “For now we need to have lockdowns?”

            That’s what he’s saying in an environment where his medical advisors, who have much higher public trust than he does, are calling for a continuation of social distancing.

            *EDIT* Wait, is that a direct quote? If not, what’s the best direct quote you can give saying that he supports shutting things down? I found he was “OK” with Nevada’s shutdown but seemed mostly to be tolerating it because he had to. “But you could call that one either way.”

            https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2020/04/19/las-vegas-president-trump-ok-coronavirus-shutdown-public-safety/5163162002/

            and he’s not lambasting them.

            https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1251169217531056130

            https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/coronavirus-trump-says-some-governors-have-gone-too-far-lockdown-n1187596

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Yes, he seems to think a few states have gone too far. He’s not calling for an end to the lockdown in Michigan, but a lessening of it.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Who knows what he is favor of? It’s all fucking word salad.

            Tweeting #LiberateMichigan while people flagrantly flaunt the lockdown rules doesn’t parse as “Hey, ease up as much as is prudent”.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            I think he understands that the lockdown is unpopular with his base, and he’s probably not a fan of it himself, but then what choice does he have?

            If he calls for a lockdown lift and the governors listen to him then he’s going to have an election on the top of >1M American corpses, other countries imposing travel bans on the US, and so on. Even Senile Joe could win then.
            If the governors tell him to f**k off, then it’s a constitutional crisis. Good luck getting it sorted out while the courts are shut down.
            If Fauci resigns in protest and calls him an idiot, it will be also a yuuuge PR hit.

            I’m perhaps being too uncharitable to Orange Man, he may in fact care about American lives rather than just winning the election.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            but then what choice does he have?

            Do the fucking job?

            Sometimes you have to take the hit. The buck at the very least should stop at his desk.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Can’t we just take it for granted that (pretty much) no one wants millions dead, another Great Depression or a police state?

            No. I figure the police always want a police state. Our attorney general brags on twitter about charging someone with a crime for organizing a protest. And our governor, when asked, says the Bill of Rights is above his pay grade.

            In Venice Beach, California, the government bulldozed sand into a skate park and bragged about it. This is more or less a desire of authoritarians distilled: to figure out what people enjoy, and take it away, all for “your own good” or “the greater good”.

          • John Schilling says:

            The laws we already have (and that police are expected to enforce) are generally broken by people with extensive expertise in evading the police, and also some combination of lawyers, guns, and/or money. It’s not out of the question that the police would enjoy a change of pace in that regard. But that’s probably a second-order effect.

  12. pacificverse says:

    Thrive vs. survive makes perfect sense.

    It’s an old-fashioned cost-benefit analysis: is economic shutdown (and attendant few hundred thousand deaths from poverty, reduced access to hospitals, etc) worth e.g. a few hundred thousand lives saved?

    To a cost-benefit-calculating conservative, the cost-benefit analysis is “fuzzy”, and highly sensitive to the inputs in your disease and economic models (whether the death rate is 0.5%, 2% or 5%, hospital capacity, etc.). Lives are worth a finite number of dollars, as any incremental-cost-effectiveness analysis (a staple of public health anywhere outside the bleeding-heart USA) should clearly demonstrate.

    At this point in time, it is reasonably clear that American, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, and European lives are worth such a large amount of money, and COVID-19 is so very deadly, that very harsh containment measures are entirely cost-effective. Unfortunately, some chunks of the developing world may not be so lucky; economic productivity is so much lower that an economic shutdown could well “kill more people – i.e. cost more QALY” than letting COVID-19 spread with some mitigation.

    How much economic productivity is necessary to societal survival? How bad a shutdown can the economy take? A conservative would estimate this conservatively, and rate the risk of social disruption and happiness lost from economic shutdown substantially higher than the typical liberal. Hence a predisposition to measured, cost-effective disease responses and an inbuilt knee-jerk distaste at “maximum effort containment” as recommended by the WHO and China, even when it was actually cost-effective (because there’s no obvious cost cap, and the worst-case scenarios back then were flawed). Obviously, if you feed garbage data into your models (and brush off the scary Chinese January data as “those stupid Commies can’t do anything right”), you will get garbage conclusions – such as Boris Johnson’s flawed analysis that mitigation and herd immunity would work adequately.

    But it’s all been mixed up with partisan politics in the United States.

    • matkoniecz says:

      is economic shutdown (and attendant few hundred thousand deaths from poverty, reduced access to hospitals, etc) worth e.g. a few hundred thousand lives saved?

      Is there any evidence that shutdown and direct virus will have death toll on the same order of the magnitude?

      How much economic productivity is necessary to societal survival?

      Depends on what you mean by “societal” and “survival”.

      “maximum effort containment” as recommended by the WHO

      AFAIK this organization for quite long advocated less than maximum effort containment.

      China

      They complained about flight bans. That is not advocating “maximum effort containment”.

      • pacificverse says:

        It doesn’t have to cause deaths of a similar magnitude. A million people losing a day off work, for example, might have the same QALY effect as one death.

        The WHO screamed for maximum containment for day one. Standard epidemiological protocol is that containment is not achieved by travel bans, or restrictions on movement, or screening everyone going in a country. Containment is achieved by aggressive contact tracing and isolation and quarantine of contacts. It was the UK which went for mitigation. The PRC and WHO screamed at Boris Johnson the day he said “herd immunity”. They screamed it long and loud.

        Precisely. Societal. Survival. Different people will read different things into it. Hence a “fuzzy” cost-effectiveness analysis.

        You misread me. At this point, COVID-19 is obviously so bad that even very expensive containment is very cost-effective, even in poverty-ridden India (the ICER for a QALY is tied to a multiple of GDP/cap). The conservatives are using garbage data to get garbage conclusions.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Precisely. Societal. Survival. Different people will read different things into it. Hence a “fuzzy” cost-effectiveness analysis.

          Survival of society is a very low bar. It is likely that 30% death toll would be survivable. For example during WW II Poland lost 17% of population, with part of that being a deliberate attempt to murder key people.

          Latvia, Lithuania lost 10%+. 25% dead in Belarus Soviet republic.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

          (to compare – UK deaths were at about 1% of population, USA death at 0.32%)

          It doesn’t have to cause deaths of a similar magnitude. A million people losing a day off work, for example, might have the same QALY effect as one death.

          You explicitly mentioned “hundred thousand deaths from poverty, reduced access to hospitals”, QALY (without deaths) would be on top of that.

          The WHO screamed for maximum containment for day one.

          What you define as day one?

          Standard epidemiological protocol is that containment is not achieved by travel bans, or restrictions on movement, or screening everyone going in a country

          This may be standard epidemiological protocol, but it is not maximum containment.

          Maximum containment is 100% movement restrictions, and screening everyone.

        • Aapje says:

          @pacificverse

          The WHO screamed for maximum containment for day one.

          No, they didn’t. They were participating in the Chinese cover up on day one.

          Standard epidemiological protocol is that containment is not achieved by travel bans, or restrictions on movement, or screening everyone going in a country.

          This is what globalists think is maximum containment…until it stops working, then they suddenly realize that they can actually do more.

          Containment is achieved by aggressive contact tracing and isolation and quarantine of contacts.

          Contact tracing only works if the virus transmits slowly enough and/or the symptoms are evidently quickly and/or you test enough.

          None of that was true for COVID at the off and if we want to do it in the future, we need severe restrictions on people without symptoms to keep transmission low enough for contact tracing to work.

        • Clutzy says:

          TBH, I can’t think of one assertion in this post that I agree with. The WHO did a cover up. C19 is not obviously so bad that containment is cost effective (in fact it appears all government organizations are intentionally not doing randomized testing to determine whether this is true or not). Containment of C19 is probably impossible with contact tracing because of its odd way of dispersing.

    • 2irons says:

      The risk from the virus looked exponential based on the initial models. Now for whatever reason the curves are flattening.

      The risk to the economy is exponential based on a negative spiral – one bankruptcy causes others which cause others…

      We do not know where the tipping point to a Great Depression lies nor how long investors faith in central banks will stretch (their monetary expansion being the main tool to guard against a complete lack of investment demand and a downward spiral of no confidence.)

      The role of government is to ensure stability. The economy presents a greater risk of instability at this point than additional deaths.

    • Matt M says:

      Unfortunately, some chunks of the developing world may not be so lucky; economic productivity is so much lower that an economic shutdown could well “kill more people – i.e. cost more QALY” than letting COVID-19 spread with some mitigation.

      And it’s probably worth pointing out that the global economy is so intertwined… there really isn’t a scenario wherein the entire developed world drastically reduces its consumption, but the developing world can continue all of its production, even if it wants to.

      If the US shuts down, that’s going to severely disrupt the economies of China, India, etc. whether they agree with it and whether that’s good for them or not.

    • eric23 says:

      If coronavirus becomes endemic in (say) India but not in the rest of the world, then no country will let anyone from India into its borders. That might cause more long-term harm to India’s economy than a shutdown of a couple months right now.

      • keaswaran says:

        Won’t they be fine as long as they agree to the testing protocol in the airports? You’re allowed to enter Australia as long as you have agricultural inspection to make sure you don’t bring the next cane toad or rabbit or fox or any of the number of other things that have gone viral there.

        • eric23 says:

          I don’t think the tests are reliable enough for that, particularly if you have just been infected and the virus has not yet built up to significant levels. What would be needed is immediate quarantine for some time after arrival.

      • LesHapablap says:

        The virus will be endemic in the US, there is no way they can eradicate it at this point. So places like NZ and Taiwan will have to isolate themselves from India, the US, the UK, etc.

        This isolation will likely take the form of mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arrivals, like NZ had prior to their lockdown. It’s effectively shutting the borders.

        • albatross11 says:

          If they can do rapid testing, I think the quarantine period can be a lot shorter than 14 days. Especially if they can require that you get a rapid screening before you get on the plane in the US.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            14-day quarantine is the baseline, worst-case scenario. There are lots of things you can do short of that. Especially if you are tolerating having a low number of cases.

            A nursing home’s defenses might need to be built for that worst-case scenario. But a country that is willing to tolerate a low number of cases can get by with less. Say, doing a health check at the border, sending off the sample to a test lab that will get results in a day, and in the meantime you require the visitor to have a tracking application on their phone so they can find them if you need to.

            I don’t know the exact right level of cost and risk that’s appropriate for each country, but over time they’ll figure it out. There are lots of variables to tune and lots of possibilities. (For example, the airline could do its own health checks ahead of time, because they don’t want infections spreading on their planes.)

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Especially if you are tolerating having a low number of cases.

            I think the big question is whether this is, in fact, tolerable and/or sustainable.

            Having an actual low number of cases is always “tolerable”, I would guess. But you can’t tolerate a low number of cases if that low number will grow unchecked.

            In the case of SARS-Cov2, the $20T question is “what measures will either reliably keep R0 below 1 or detect all cases in an outbreak and isolate them”.

            And, if you can’t reliably detect them on entry to a country, I have a hard time thinking you will be able to reliably detect them after they have been spread into your populace. So then that amounts to being able to reliably enter a mode that reduces R0 to below, preferably well below, 1 for an extended period.

            Is that doable? Hopefully with more time and knowledge.

          • LesHapablap says:

            albatross,

            Maybe it will be shorter, maybe 7 days, with rapid testing. Long enough that no air travel is commercially viable. But the point is, the US is not getting any special treatment here. India and the US are on the same side of the bright red ‘have virus’ ‘don’t have virus’ line. There is a world of difference between Taiwan/NZ 5 new cases per day, which is probably pretty close to new infections, and the United States’ 26,000 new cases per day, which is probably more like 250,000 new infections. The US would have to go into full lockdown for 12 months in order to reach <100 new infections per day.

            Edward,

            There is absolutely no way that NZ allows anyone entry to roam around after entry with a tracking application. I assume Taiwan and other countries that have almost eradicated is the same. Before the lockdown we required 14-day self isolation of any arrival into NZ. It was a joke: many tourists were not following the rules. Stories were all over the news of new arrivals getting on tour buses coughing all over the place.

            The prime minister has been unequivocal that we are doing everything possible to avoid going back into heavy lockdown once we are out of it. They aren’t taking any chances letting asymptomatic spreaders or air crew wander around town.

            The only way this changes is if NZ decides not to suppress the virus any more based on a world shift in strategy following Sweden. Which is what I am hoping for. The other hope is that NZ forms a bubble with the countries that have effectively eradicated like hopefully Australia. There's a lot of push for that here in NZ.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            There are many many many variables that can be tuned when designing a travel restriction. There is a lot of room between a 14-day quarantine and being overrun with cases.

            You need to deliver the tests to a testing station, which will have its own capacity issues. If people want to make air travel happen, then testing facilities will be co-located near airports. You might group passengers together in large groups and test them before they even get on the plane and then again after they get off.

            Is what I proposed the exact right answer? Probably not, but if you think it’s too onerous or too porous we can tune it more. You could require a clean test from a third-party (so it’s not part of the airport crush) within 2 days of getting on the plane, either in addition to or in place of above requirements, depending again on how you want this all to work.

            As long as people want it to work, it will, at some cost of time/money/convenience/privacy.

          • LesHapablap says:

            Edward,

            I realize this is probably not what you mean, but if those looser restrictions are granted to the US, they’ll be granted to Spain and Germany and India. So US is still on the other side of the bright line.

            More to your point: there are technical solutions short of a 14-day quarantine, but the restrictions will stay onerous enough that air travel won’t be commercially viable until NZ gives up its strategy. They might give it up because a treatment becomes available, or Sweden starts to look smart, or a vaccine comes around. Or they might find that a Trans-Tasman bubble suits them just fine.

    • Loriot says:

      This strikes me as strongly post-hoc reasoning. If you asked someone back in December what the “Survive vs Thrive” theory would predict about a massive pandemic, basically everyone would have said it would predict that conservatives would be on the pro-containment side.

      • EchoChaos says:

        Conservatives were the ones back in January favoring cutting off the USA from the rest of the world, so that fits perfectly.

        • Matt M says:

          This. Conservatives were plenty in favor of very harsh measures to prevent foreigners from introducing a foreign disease into the US.

          But they were defeated, such measures weren’t adopted, and the disease became rampant here anyway.

          • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

            Many of the people introducing the virus to the US will have been American tourists visiting China or Europe. You can’t just blame it on “foreigners”.

          • Clutzy says:

            Tourism is seen as a negative in many traditional circles as well.

          • BillyZoom says:

            @NostalgiaForInfinity

            From a New York perspective, it wasn’t tourists returning, it’s people working abroad on business, a significantly greater number of people than tourists.

            A friend in the textiles industry describes is as Wuhan->Milan->New York.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          Yeah, but that’s not actually thrive vs. survive.

          That’s just bog-standard “the other tribe(s) are the source of danger”. See metros worrying about people who hunt.

          • EchoChaos says:

            I think I disagree. When the disease was a mysterious foreign disease, the conservatives were the “survive” camp, wanting to cut off trade rather than get it. That fits perfectly. Foreign trade is a classic “thrive” luxury good.

            Initially, conservatives were just as aggressive about lockdowns in states hit early (e.g. Washington, Ohio, New York, California).

            Then the extent of the danger of the disease was revealed to be mostly to inner cities and substantially lower than the economic impacts of the shutdown, they still wanted to survive, but now were against the shutdowns because that is a larger threat.

            I think without the full timeline you miss some of it by just saying “survive would be lockdowns”.

          • The Nybbler says:

            @EchoChaos

            That’s my take on it as well, as someone who was initially skeptical about the impact of the disease. There were a number of groups (mostly “right”, but not the whole “right”) who were sounding the alarm and pro-extreme-measures when the disease was a scary unknown. Now that some data is in and it’s a scary (but less scary) known, positions have shifted.

        • keaswaran says:

          Notice that as of yesterday, Trump’s position seems to be that we should cut the USA off from the rest of the world (complete ban on all immigration?!) but it’s not a big enough threat to keep people out of shops for another couple weeks.

          • EchoChaos says:

            CULTURE WAR!!!!

            Let’s talk this tomorrow. 🙂

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            Odds are we are going to get a long series of “updates” and “corrections” to the ban. Or it will be one of those TOTAL BANS that only apply to 5% of people.

          • Clutzy says:

            Odds are we are going to get a long series of “updates” and “corrections” to the ban. Or it will be one of those TOTAL BANS that only apply to 5% of people.

            Well thats the point. Most the people are saying that people will get the virus if we open up before vaccine. But waiting for vaccine is impossible. So when you have available hospital capacity you should be open.

          • Preventing immigration is a bad thing to do, but it isn’t the same thing as cutting the U.S. off from the rest of the world. It still permits foreign trade. It could even still permit foreign travel, tourism, business trips, and the like, although I don’t know how much of that the actual policy Trump is adopting will allow.

        • Dack says:

          If you asked someone back in December what the “Survive vs Thrive” theory would predict about a massive pandemic, basically everyone would have said it would predict that conservatives would be on the pro-containment side.

          Conservatives were the ones back in January favoring cutting off the USA from the rest of the world, so that fits perfectly.

          Cf. Survive conservatives advocating nonintervention when a war is hypothetical vs advocating total war once the war becomes real.

  13. Elliot says:

    I asked this a while ago and got good answers, & I need new questions now more than ever:

    What are your favourite pub quiz questions?

    What makes a pub quiz question fun? I think people should have a good chance of getting it correct, either by knowing or guessing. Or at least, people should feel like they *could’ve* got it and say “damn, of course” when they hear the answer. But does that cover it?

    • matkoniecz says:

      I think people should have a good chance of getting it correct, either by knowing or guessing. Or at least, people should feel like they *could’ve* got it and say “damn, of course” when they hear the answer.

      +1, this describes many questions that I liked. But there are some not really falling into this type.

      ———

      I tried pub quiz and disliked it because more than half of questions were about pop culture.

      Questions that were about specific facts (number of countries in the world, weight of Earth) were better.

      I liked questions where it was necessary to estimate things (how much money is earned by Bill Gates per second).

      It was nice to have some questions about really narrow topics, answerable by people actually involved in a given topic. So question was answerable by just some people, what was nice in groups. For example “O() complexity of quick sort” or an equivalent type of question for entomology/architecture/history/brewing/cooking/mining/computer games.

      This allowed people with entry-level knowledge (but with some knowledge in the topic!) to shine and become an expert in the group.

      It was less “damn, of course” – and more about your friend being knowledgeable in some topic. For bonus point, discussion between two people claiming to know answer was really fun.

      I really liked questions that were not about specific facts. For example “lowest positive integer that will be selected by exactly one group”.

    • Belisaurus Rex says:

      # of capitals named after US presidents

    • Rob K says:

      Coincidentally I was writing questions for a remote trivia night recently, and was thinking a lot about this. I had a mixed crowd of attendees by age, interests, and seriousness about trivia, and wanted as many as possible to have a good time.

      These rules were probably a bit specific to the format of trivia I was using, which involves reading a single question and then giving teams some time to formulate an answer. Harder and more “you know it or you don’t” questions can fit better when teams/people are working their way through a list of questions all at once.

      The rules I set for myself were as follows:
      -Getting things right is more fun, so the get rate on the whole should be somewhat over 50%
      -Guessing between some plausible leads is more fun than being completely at sea. This means that questions where you’re picking from a known, if large, pool of possibilities (US states, countries, whatever) are better than say being asked to name a fictional character or a relatively obscure person you may just not have heard of. Ideally, teams that don’t know the answer right off should have a spirited debate.
      -Too easy is no good, so on easier questions teams should still feel a sense of accomplishment for getting it – do a little mental work to get to the answer.
      -It’s good if people feel like they learned a fun fact, especially if they can work out the answer based on a fun fact they didn’t previously know.

      So e.g. the question cited above as good (“O() complexity of quick sort”) was not one I would have asked.

      The most popular question, based on audience feedback, was this:

      2.4 billion years ago, scientists believe, nearly all existing life on earth went extinct as a result of the accumulation of what gas in earth’s atmosphere?

      (55% got this, with most of those being successful guesses)

      The hardest question I asked, based on get rate, was this:

      The 1920 death of professional baseball player Ray Chapman led to a major league ban on a certain practice. Many players were accused of or punished for violating that ban in the following decades, including Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry, who went so far as to write a book confessing to it. What was that practice?

      29% got this – a few older folks who knew who Gaylord Perry is, and a few who logicked it out. but even many teams that missed had a discussion including the correct answer, and said they enjoyed it.

      • matkoniecz says:

        So e.g. the question cited above as good (“O() complexity of quick sort”) was not one I would have asked.

        Additional context: it was during time when I was studying, nearly all participants were students, large part of them were computer science students. In another context this would be likely ridiculous.

        • The Nybbler says:

          “Complexity of quicksort” is an unladen-swallow kind of question. “Average case or worst case?” “I don’t know…..AAIIIEEEE”

      • zzzzort says:

        Good questions. I’ve always appreciated pub quiz questions with just the right amount of work. Anagrams are too much work, remembering someone’s name is too little work, thinking about has been banned in baseball is just right.

        (Approximate) years tend to be good because there are many different pieces of info to synthesize. I might not know when the pony express ran, but it was definitely before the railroads and telegraph, and definitely after gold was found in california.

      • Elliot says:

        I agree with >50%. I pitched the last quiz too hard because I wanted all the questions to be challenging, but the people doing it felt kinda demoralized and it meant they enjoyed the whole thing less.

    • bullseye says:

      Contestants don’t expect to know all the answers, but they do expect to at least understand the questions. That limits how deep you can get into specialized expert knowledge.

      • Matt M says:

        The best trivia games are the ones where you know some answers, and the ones where you don’t know, you feel like you should know them. Every question should be one that the participants could plausibly know.

        • Nick says:

          That’s why pop culture questions are so common. Ask who the lead is of some popular movie from just a bit too long ago, and you’re going to have a few people who remember quickly and a bunch whose answers are on the tips of their tongues.

        • Procrastinating Prepper says:

          My favourite question in that vein:

          “What animal did the ancient Romans describe as ‘a cross between a camel and a leopard?'”

          Gur nafjre vf n tvenssr. (rot13)

    • Jake R says:

      I’ve always liked “What is the sixth largest lake in the United States?” because it’s weird to be asked about the sixth of something. Probably too easy though.

    • eyeballfrog says:

      I don’t know about favorite, but I know my least favorite: name that tune song and artist. I know I can tune out the entire round because even if I’ve heard the song before I’m unlikely to know both of those pieces of information. And that also means I have nothing to do for that whole round. It’s bad enough that I don’t go to any trivia nights where it’s a regular feature.

  14. EGI says:

    I have written a LW post I would like to signal boost about a possible way to
    eradicate Covid over a couple of months through wide spread use of particle
    filtering masks. The article discusses how and why this should be
    possible, and how to solve the logistical and production demands
    (mostly: use reusable silicone masks in stead of the one way stuff
    currently used). I think spreading this idea might be really high value.

    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yKYg6D7HNxLuJDcLS/hammer-and-mask-wide-spread-use-of-reusable-particle

    Here is a tldr version by a friend of mine wrote:
    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oHT2WZxFA9CSPMicb/the-hammer-and-the-mask-a-call-to-action

    • Algon33 says:

      Idea seems plausible.

      The filters are the sticking point for me. How often do you need to replace them? Can production of these be ramped up massively? How difficult is forming a seal, typically?

      Scott mentioned N95 masks are troublesome for most healthcare workers, so I’m not optimistic. Remember, even trivial inconveniences are a major problem for adoption.

      • EGI says:

        – Need to replace filters:
        Ultimately filters for these masks should be designed with longevity in mind and then be tested under typical use conditions. My gut feeling based on air filters in other applications (clean rooms, vacuum cleaners, etc.) is that hundreds of hours should easily be possible. Even current commercial filters may last that long. From my post:

        Since these filters are generally designed to be worn for a couple of hours in environments with very high dust load (grinding wood or stone, spray painting etc.) these filters should easily last for days, weeks or even months worn in a relatively clean health care or community setting. While this is generally not recommended in the manufacturers guidelines, as long as the filter remains dry it should be quite safe [18].

        – Production ramp up: Should be easy, since it is one or two injection molding part + the same / similar filter fleece used for filtering face piece (FFP) masks (N95 is one filtering class FFP masks can have)

        – Ease of use, forming a seal: This is pretty simple IF the mask roughly fits your face, like putting on swimming googles / a diving mask. Silicone rubber more easily adapts to your anatomy than fliter fleece and the mask is preformed. Multiple mask bodies to choose from are absolutely neccessary though. With FFP masks most people fail to bend the nose wire correctly and often it is not even possible to adapt it to your specific nose.

        Fun fact: Health care workers are not that more competent than the general public. Why should they be? From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10656351/

        Of the 62 healthcare workers observed using a respirator for TB, 40 (65%) did not don the respirator properly.

        . Some other source I don’t remember right now found somewhere in the 70ies for the general public. FFP masks in both cases.

        • MartMart says:

          Apologies for replying without having read the referenced post.
          I think filter longevity may be drastically shorter in a wearable application than it is when installed in some kind of equipment. I don’t doubt that a filter can last hundreds of hours before becoming too clogged up to allow sufficient air flow. When installed in some piece of equipment, that’s really all one has to worry about.
          However, in a wearable application, the filter is constantly being taken off and put back on. Every time, one risks contaminating the clean side. Once the clean side is contaminated, the filter becomes a great deal less useful.

          • EGI says:

            Thanks for this feedback. This is valuable sinch this may be one of the misconceptions that may be holding the concept back.
            1. If you take your mask off in a way / in an environment that gets your filter contaminated enough on the inside to matter for further use, you just got yourself infected, since the dose you’ll breach in (actively) is MUCH larger than what might get deposited randomly on the inside of your mask in all but the most contrived circumstances. And then you will only pick a small fraction of this back up during the next use.
            2. The inside of your filter is protected by a one way valve that can be cleaned with soap or etanol.
            3. Sars-CoV-2 decays quite quickly, so your mask should be OKish the next day even if did not clean it.

          • albatross11 says:

            Also, if you don’t have a one-way valve for exhaling, your mask’s filter media is going to get wet from the moisture in your breath. I think that degrades filter performance.

    • eigenmoon says:

      Wouldn’t the one-way valve prevent the mask from actually protecting others from the wearer’s breath?

      • HeelBearCub says:

        Yeah, that’s a bug, not a feature.

        Very specifically the following sentence should be a big red-flag when dealing with a pandemic spread by exhaled droplets of water:

        Additionally, they are equipped with one-way valves that prevent the filters from being soaked by the wearers’ breath.

        Just wearing a filtering mask isn’t that much protection IF you aren’t also following proper clean protocols. I don’t think the population can reliably follow those protocols.

        Now, I’d love to see some sort of study that compared average droplet distance exhaled from these masks vs. bandannas or other cloth masks.

        One interesting test, put a cloth covering over the silicon mask, and see whether the inside of the mask still stays dry.

        • EGI says:

          No, in this concept it is not a big red flag but I should have written more about it. The air you exhale is a lot messier than the air you inhale and thus much harder on the filters. Thus you want to filter the air going in. But it may be a good idea to cover the exhaust valve with cloth or a surgical mask if you have reason to believe you might have been exposed. See my reply to eigenmoon.

          Just wearing a filtering mask isn’t that much protection IF you aren’t also following proper clean protocols. I don’t think the population can reliably follow those protocols.

          Not sure what you mean with proper clean protocols but yes, you need to disinfect / wash your hands before touching your face and probably wear eye protection. Also you are not shooting for “making infection theoretically impossible”, just for “knocking infection probability down an order of magnitude or two.” This is a huge difference.

          Now, I’d love to see some sort of study that compared average droplet distance exhaled from these masks vs. bandannas or other cloth masks.

          No need to run this, cloth masks would win. If you know/suspect you are infected, wear a surgical mask or cloth.

          One interesting test, put a cloth covering over the silicon mask, and see whether the inside of the mask still stays dry.

          This would not change mask functioning and may be done to protect others. Note however the inside of the mask always gets wet, just the filters stay dry due to the valves protecting them.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            If you know/suspect you are infected, wear a surgical mask or cloth.

            Houston, we have a problem.

            I think you fundamentally misunderstand what you can expect from the broad population.

            In addition, if you suspect you are infected, the advice should be to not go out in public at all.

        • albatross11 says:

          The disposable part of the mask should be covering the outlet valve. Make that have relatively large surface area so you don’t add too much work to breathing. Now your long-term filter medium stays dry and will last a lot longer, and you have a smaller piece that needs to be replaced periodically.

          Imagine a world where everyone wears P100 or N95 masks with outlet valves. This prevents you from inhaling respiratory droplets, which is great. But it doesn’t keep you from spreading the virus around when you’re infected. Your droplets won’t go into my lungs, nose, or mouth, but might make it into my eyes, and will definitely contaminate surfaces and things around you that might spread the virus later. They’ll also get stuck on my clothes and on the outside of my mask, where they can infect me later.

          Imagine a world where everyone wears some kind of magical mask that prevents any outbound droplets but doesn’t protect the wearer at all. (You can kind-of imagine an inverted mask design–the one-way valve draws air in, and the filters work only on the exhale.) In that world, you’re not able to leave respiratory droplets anywhere, and I will never catch the virus from your respiratory droplets short of maybe having you cry on me or spread from stool[1].

          This turns on which routes of infection are the most important. If it’s airborne transmission, then everyone wearing really good filter masks even with outlet valves is still a win. If it’s nearby people getting droplets on their eyes/clothes/hands/food/things they will touch later, then the good filter masks with outlet valves aren’t all that helpful at stopping transmission.

          [1] COVID-19 is often present in patients’ stool, and flushing toilets are great at producing aerosols. Closing the lid is a nice idea, but public toilets never seem to have lids.

          • EGI says:

            The idea was to not have a disposable part and make filters last as long as possible to make it logistically possible that most of the population can wear a mask whenever they are in contact with people from outside their household. But having a cloth / fleece that can be cleaned and reused cover the outlet is certainly a good idea. But I do not think filtering outgoing air without mucking up your filters is technically possible. If it turns out otherwise, great, lets do so.

            They’ll also get stuck on my clothes and on the outside of my mask, where they can infect me later.

            Current understanding is that CoV-2 becomes nonviable when dried out Results form this study, though not in the document: (https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwischenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt_0.pdf).

            Stated it here: https://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundheit/2020-04/hendrik-streeck-covid-19-heinsberg-symptome-infektionsschutz-massnahmen-studie/seite-2

            They looked at about 100 infected households and sampled surfaces. Found virus RNA everywhere but NO viable virus.

            This makes these concerns mostly moot as long as you wear eye protection and mask as long as you are exposed and disinfect hands before taking the mask off.

          • EGI says:

            Re stool: CoV-2 in stool seems also to be (mostly) inactivated though judgement is still out on this one. Or do you know of a study finding viable virus in stool (infecting cell cultures) as opposed to just having the RT-PCR come back positiv?

          • albatross11 says:

            I know virus in stool was responsible for some spread of the original SARS, thanks to some terribly buggered-up plumbing. I don’t know if SARS2 follows the same pattern, but it wouldn’t be shocking given that diarrhea is a somewhat common symptom.

      • EGI says:

        Yes, this is correct and also the case with the overwhelming majority of FFP masks currently in use in hospitals and so on, since almost all of them have an out going one way valve to reduce exhaling resistance (the rubber thingy in the middle of the mask). They do NOT have an intake valve protecting the filter though.

        This is not a big problem, since after a few days of using your mask you can be pretty sure that you are not infected, thus posing no risk to anyone anyway. If in doubt you could cover the exhale valve with cloth or a surgical mask.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          Yes, this is correct and also the case with the overwhelming majority of FFP masks currently in use in hospitals and so on

          Citation? That does not match my understand of standard health service PPE gear

          • EGI says:

            Look at this standard N 95 mask: https://pksafety.com/3m-n95-disposable-respirator-with-exhalation-valve-8210v-box-10/
            You see the white plastic thingy with the yellow rubber disk beneath? on inhalation the yellow disk is pulled against the valve seat, forming a seal. On exhalation it is pushed away from the valve seat letting air out.
            Not ALL N95 mask have this but at least in Germany where I live most pictures I have seen from hospitals with FFP2 masks (EU N95 equivalent) had these valves. Unfortunately I do not have a statistic about this. There may be local variation.

            Cursory google picture search suggests that this seems to be more of a European thing. Found about 30% exhalation valves searching for “N 95 hospital”

          • HeelBearCub says:

            From 3M:

            Can a respirator with a valve be effective against bioaerosols?
            The purpose of a respirator’s exhalation valve is to reduce the breathing resistance during exhalation; it does not impact a respirator’s ability to provide respiratory protection. The valve is designed to open during exhalation to allow exhaled air to exit the respirator and then close tightly during inhalation, so inhaled air is not permitted to enter the respirator through the valve. Most countries do not permit valves on surgical respirators because wearer-generated droplets, exhaled through the valve, might contaminate a sterile field.While a valve does not change a respirator’s ability to help reduce a wearer’s exposure to bioaerosols, it is not recommended that a person who is exhibiting symptoms of illness wear a valved respirator, because there is a possibility that exhaled particles may leave the respirator via the valve and enter the surrounding environment, potentially contaminating the sterile field. In summary:
            • Healthcare workers may wear valved or unvalved respirators to help reduce their exposure to potentially infectious aerosols.
            • Healthcare workers should wear a surgical respirator (which usually do not have valves) if they require respiratory protection while performing patient care tasks that might generate a high-pressure stream of liquid such as arterial spray or are working in a sterile field.

            The question is, in a pandemic, are health care workers a vector? Empirical evidence says yes.

          • EGI says:

            Sure, don’t use a valved mask when operating on someone, use a surgical mask. US regulations seem to be saner in this regard than EU regulations. I had a dental procedure on Saturday and everyone involved was wearing a valved mask (not properly fitted…) and TV always shows valved masks when showing hospital staff dealing with Covid over here.

            This has little bearing on this topic though, since I am talking about community settings and health care settings outside the operating theater. Also see my reply to albatross.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @EGI:
            I just think you are underestimating the relative value of “layperson tries to protect themselves via maintaining a sterile field” and “everyone is encouraged to engage in behaviors wherein contagious people don’t spread the virus as readily”.

            In a hospital setting, you may be able to treat a room as “dirty”, meaning that the healthcare providers know that the likelihood of them infecting the patient is already zero (because the patient is already infected). Then it makes more sense to concentrate on protecting the healthcare worker from the sick person. Sterile protocol is much easier to maintain. And any patient who might have the virus would have a mask placed on them, so it would be harder from them to spread.

            But out in the wide world, at a population level, we want everyone to keep their potential viruses to themselves as much as possible. Everyone is presumed to have the virus, because, while we don’t know who has it, we know someone does.

  15. FrankistGeorgist says:

    Inspired by last open thread’s discussion of the republican government clause of the US Constitution… Let’s throw that right out, or at least smudge it to “crowned” republics. Who would be the king of your state? Either someone illustrious enough within the state to found a dynasty, a ceremonial celebrity, or perhaps in a more mystical King in the Mountain role.

    Some are obvious, with California having the courtesy rank of Empire under the Norton dynasty. Pennsylvania having Good King Quaker, William and his descendants. I’m guessing Texas would crown Sam Houston with appropriately Texan headwear. Though Tennessee might have the King already I wouldn’t object to Dolly Parton being declared a living deity and fitting a pharaoh’s crown over that hair in Memphis.

    I imagine Idaho, Washington, and Oregon having a triple-monarchy of House Lewis, Clark, and Charbonneau (to receive a Windsor-esque rebranding to Sacagawea to be more in line with popular will). Idaho might also have given the Syringa Throne to Mullan. Utah would of course pick from among the Mormon pioneers if not the Prophet himself.

    On a smaller scale, I suspect Fiorello LaGuardia is New York City’s Once and Future Mayor, who’ll awaken in some far off era to do something grand and mythical like build a new subway.

  16. TheContinentalOp says:

    Alt-History Question:

    Suppose the Maine blows up in Norfolk instead of Havana Harbor and Spanish-American War is avoided. The US doesn’t annex The Philippines or Guam, and without those two, decides it’s not work claiming Wake Island either.

    Does this change the thinking of the Japanese in WW2? Do they still bomb Pearl Harbor?

    What if the WJB wins the election of 1896, the Anti-Imperialist League is in full-force, and the US doesn’t annex Hawaii? Is there anyway that Japan and the US come to war?

    • EchoChaos says:

      In that situation, the USA probably doesn’t push its foreign policy levers to break the Anglo-Japanese alliance in the 1920s and 30s, so the UK and Imperial Japan split the Asian Pacific peacefully.

      China suffers pretty horribly in this situation, but they suffered pretty horribly in ours after their civil war, so in terms of total human suffering it might be less?

      • Radu Floricica says:

        But Japan doesn’t lose the war, so the military-inclined regime they had still holds power, possibly until now. Not sure how that would turn out.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Not sure how that would turn out.

          No idea. Lots of really nasty regimes have had successor regimes that turned out to be good, but plenty of them have just created massive human misery. No real way to know which way a theoretical Imperial Japan successor would be other than speculation.

    • AlesZiegler says:

      I think that without the need to take Philippines, it is unlikely Japanese would unilateral attack the US.

      They would still attack Britain, though. Probably US would still have joined the war on the side of the British-Soviet alliance and thus would end up in the state of war with Japan.

      • EchoChaos says:

        They would still attack Britain, though.

        Britain and Japan were close allies in WWI, and the US took a lot of time and effort cracking that alliance apart because they were worried about the Japanese in the Pacific. Without that US effort the most likely outcome is that Japan stays as Britain’s bulwark against Communism in the East.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          Anglo-Japanese alliance was primarily against Russia. I question your assessment that Japan was a close ally of Britain in WWI. Yes, they grabbed German colonies, but they refused to sent any troops to Europe.

          I know little about interwar relations between Britain and Japan, but in the 20s, Soviet Union was weak, so presumably alliance made little sense, and then Japan alienated Britain, as well as the whole “liberal camp” (this is not a good term, but I struggle to find another) with the occupation of Manchuria, condemned by the League of Nations. I doubt that either Japan would NOT take Manchuria or that Britain would be ok with it, whatever diplomatic maneuvers US was engaged in.

          Soviet Union and Japan continued to have hostile relations up to undeclared war until 1939, when two things happened – Japanese army was beaten badly at Khalkhin Gol, suggesting that USSR would be tough opponent, and Germany made a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union, so any hope of German help against USSR for Japan was seemingly gone.

          Japanese attacked British, French, and Dutch colonies since they needed to raid their resources after US imposed embargo on them. It could probably be avoided only if British would be willing to sell those resources to Japan, which I doubt would happen under any plausible circumstances, since with USSR and Germany at war, Japanese attack on the Soviets was now very plausible, and Britain would not risk that it will arm the Japanese against its new ally.

          • EchoChaos says:

            Right, without the Pacific pressure, the USA isn’t imposing an embargo on Japan, so shipping from us is a much better source than war, and why would the UK provoke Japan across the world when they’re engaged in a life or death struggle with the Germans?

            Especially since Japan/Russian enmity comes before Operation Barbarossa, when it seems very plausible that the Nazi/Communist alliance will endure, the UK picking Japan for an ally makes plausible sense.

            Sure the liberal world is mad at Japan for Manchuria, but they were also mad at Stalin for Ukraine and generally being Stalin and they still allied with him.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            @EchoChaos

            US imposed an embargo on Japan because it looked like Japan might attack British Empire and or Soviet Union.

            Unless I am misreading you, you suggest that Britain might entagle itself on Japanese side in Japanese-Soviet war. But that would be a stupid move, and I do not see any evidence that British leadership would be that stupid.

            If the Soviet-British alliance holds and if the US still supports it from behind, none of which I think would change with Spanish or whoever ruling over the Phillipines, then I see no way how Japan could get resources it needs from either British Empire or the US peacefuly.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @AlesZiegler

            You are WAY later in the timeline than I am thinking of. Yes, if Japan still allies Germany and Italy, the UK is not going to ally with them, but why would Japan do that if the UK remained their ally into the 20s?

            The Soviet-British alliance wouldn’t happen until Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Until then, most of the West thought that the Soviets and Nazis were allies, since the Soviets had combined with the Nazis in 1939 to partition Poland.

            If the Japanese were allies of the British instead of the Germans, as they would remain without US pressure on the UK to abandon them, then the Japanese battles with the Soviets could very well get the UK to assist them against the threat of a Nazi-Soviet Axis.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            @EchoChaos

            You are WAY later in the timeline than I am thinking of.

            I don’t think I am.

            If the Japanese were allies of the British instead of the Germans, as they would remain without US pressure on the UK to abandon them, then the Japanese battles with the Soviets could very well get the UK to assist them against the threat of a Nazi-Soviet Axis.

            This is precisely “a stupid move” I was referring to as being what British were unlikely to do. Even pre Barbarossa, British were careful not to stumble into the conflict with the USSR. Of course in the case of such a conflict, Barbarossa would have happened much later, since Hitler would be happy to let his enemies destroy themselves for him). Even when Stalin attacked Poland on 17 September 1939, British did not declare war on the Soviet Union, arguably in violation of their pledges to guarantee Polish independence.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @AlesZiegler

            But why would the Japanese be preparing an attack on the British, Dutch and French for resources as a British ally still getting American trade?

            The Japanese attacking the Soviets makes some degree of sense still, but the British would presumably argue against that.

            You seem to be assuming that the US and UK still embargo the Japanese, who aren’t German/Italian allies in this timeline, while engaged in a war in Europe.

            That is a fair point about the British avoiding conflict with the Soviets, though. I concede that.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            @EchoChaos

            Apologies for late response, I´ve been busy with stuff.

            You are correct that if you drop an implausible assumption that Britain would join Japan in a war against the USSR, and assume instead Japanese neutrality with respect to British-German part of the war, your hypothetical becomes much more realistic. Still requires a lot of assumptions though.

    • Dack says:

      Does the US still buy Alaska?

  17. Papillon says:

    I’m about to make a major life decision: drop out and join the military or finish my masters degree in economics. My thinking is as follows:

    -I’m two months behind in my degree and have two big assignments due in two days. I’ve recovered from similar situations before, but this time it’s much worse and I’d lose many yootils in the process.
    -I’ve always enjoyed overcoming physical challenges.
    -I’m somewhat more likely to die in the military than in civillian life, and I’m okay with that.
    -I have basically no real-life friends, and I’d like to make some.
    -I’m not confident in my employment prospects post-graduation; I’d probably end up working for my dad.
    -I’m not confident that economics is worthwhile as a field. (It may be, it may not be, I’m not sure).
    -I intend to homestead at some point in the future, and the military may leave me better prepared for that than office work.

    Is there anything I’m missing? What do you think?

    • Imsoindiethatmyblogdontfit says:

      The sheepskin effect is real. You have invested almost five years of your life into your degree. If you finish, that investment will be worth a lot more. Sit down and do the calculations of how much money your degree is worth, and how much work and unpleasantness it will take to get it. You can always join the military once you are done.

      Let’s say that the sheepskin effect increases your income by 20% if you work in a relevant field (this number is basically garbage, but if it is worth doing, it is worth doing with made-up statistics). Lets say that there’s a 10% chance that you start working in a relevant field (low since you want to join the army instead). Lets say that your expected lifetime income is $1.2 million. Expected value of the degree becomes 1200000*0.2*0.1=$24000. Not an insignificant sum. Redo the math with your own numbers.

      • acymetric says:

        Yeah, joining the military is a fine thing to do, but I would strongly recommend finishing your masters before doing so given that you’ve come so far.

    • Algon33 says:

      The prestige of the course, your expected grade and how much of the course you’ve finished are important factors. Mind telling us?

      • Papillon says:

        -My university is 200-250th ranked
        -If dedicated myself to my work I could feasibly average as high as an A-, but more realistic is somewhere in the B’s
        -I’ve “done” two months of a year-long programme (I haven’t actually “done” anything).

        • Mark V Anderson says:

          Everyone is saying finish your degree, but based on this comment maybe not. If you haven’t actually finished any classes, maybe this is the time to drop out. You can get a masters later. Of course it is also true the other comments that this is basically your panic that wants you to run away to the military are correct. I’d say try to get through semester and see how you feel.

    • Matt M says:

      -I have basically no real-life friends, and I’d like to make some.
      -I intend to homestead at some point in the future, and the military may leave me better prepared for that than office work.

      There are some decent reasons to consider joining the military, but you should strike these two, as the military isn’t really any better positioned than college to help you with either of them.

    • matkoniecz says:

      This tells me that it’s not a good time to be making life-changing decisions! In fact, it’s an extra-bad time for doing any kind of serious thinking.

      +1

      It reminds me about “Fuck studies, become a ninja” parodying such escapism plans during an exam time.

    • johan_larson says:

      It sounds to me like you’ve procrastinated a bit too much, and now face much harder work than you’ve expected. And this prospect has you panicking.

      My recommendation is to absolutely finish the degree. It’s certainly worth a few days or even a few weeks of hard work. A finished degree counts for something; a half-finished one doesn’t.

      Do what you can in the time available, and submit what you can. Think carefully about the penalties for late submission, and consider deliberately submitting late. If profs haven’t been explicit about the penalties, reach out to them and discuss the matter. I expect most profs would rather than a well-done assignment a week late than a slapdash bit of work on time.

      • acymetric says:

        I expect most profs would rather than a well-done assignment a week late than a slapdash bit of work on time.

        It isn’t something I would count on, but this is probably the best time in recent history to get some leniency on due dates from a professor.

        • Aapje says:

          It might be wise to embellish the reason for the extension a bit. Something like: ‘I had a hard time finishing my assignment on time due to worry about my family.’

    • matkoniecz says:

      Absolutely do not drop out just because you have two days to make two big assignments.

      Stop procrastinating on SSC and on escapism plans.

      At least try to make extraordinary shitty assignment or request an extension or check penalty for late ones.

      Throwing out years of work because one is unwilling to work for two days or week is a bad idea.

      (yes, it is easier to say that than to do that)

      • Jon S says:

        +1 to this. Two big assignments (that are possible to complete in under a week?) should not be on your top 10 most important factors list for such a major life decision.

    • David W says:

      I understand the concern about economics being viable as a field of study. However, an economics degree is generally a good ‘generic college’ degree. From an employer’s perspective, even if they don’t need macroeconomic studies, a degree in economics on your resume ought to tell them you are capable of both verbal and quantitative analysis, and (only if you finish) capable of semi-independent work to your boss’ plan. That’s a valuable signal to be able to send, and it can apply to a wide range of potential jobs.

      For that matter, I suspect the military would value a candidate with a degree in economics, even if you’re thinking of a noncommissioned role – again as a ‘generic quantitative’ degree, most likely.

    • CatCube says:

      Echoing @Matt M, you should definitely finish your degree. I was in the military, and I’d recommend that. First off, where you’re at is a bad point at which to blow up your progress so far. Secondly, a master’s is useful in the military, where if you want to start progressing above about major (which you will if you make a career of it) you’ll need a master’s anyway, so you may as well get it now and not have to worry about it later.

    • Incurian says:

      Finish your degree, then join up.

    • eric23 says:

      have two big assignments due in two days

      Get off SSC this moment and work hard for two days and finish those assignments! Then you can think about the army.

    • John Schilling says:

      Is there anything I’m missing? What do you think?

      Your prospects for a rewarding career in the military will probably be enhanced by a completed MS or MA. An economics Masters’ probably isn’t that valuable to the military, but it does signal a bit of extra intelligence and commitment, whereas showing up as a conspicuous recent dropout signals the opposite. You are unfortunately past the part where you can show up saying that your rational life plan was to graduate with a Bachelors’ and then enlist for a term.

    • aristides says:

      Even if you do join the military, you should finish your masters. The sheepskin effect applies to the military as well. You are much more likely to make Captain and higher ranks with a Masters degree. I can’t even think of a Major I know without a Masters degree, and all the Colonel’s I know have PhDs, JDs, or MDs. Finish your Masters if you can.

    • Garrett says:

      > I’m two months behind in my degree and have two big assignments due in two days.

      Pro-tip: Be proactive and reach out to your instructors. Ask if you might get some extra time on the assignments, though don’t point out that you’ve been procrastinating. Either way, get to work and do the best you can. You can always run away to the circus military later.

    • BlackboardBinaryBook says:

      What everyone else said, and also: this seems like a uniquely bad time to sign up for physically taxing conditions living in close quarters with a bunch of other people, all while losing pretty much all control over your life.

  18. thegoodtimeline says:

    Hey everyone. You may remember Scott’s review of Daniel Ingram’s “Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha”.

    I’ve just released a longform podcast conversation with him.

    We cover a bunch of stuff: high level jhānas; cultivating joy; belief structures; ontology; 5-MEO DMT; AI alignment; psychopathy; silent experiencers; nature of time; God / highest value; transhumanism.

    Listen here

    Keep well,

    Ryan

    • Viliam says:

      I’ve just released a longform podcast conversation with him.

      Just to make sure, the pronoun “him” refers to Scott, Daniel Ingram, or the Buddha? 😀

  19. MugaSofer says:

    Some people have brought up that my thrive vs. survive theory of the political spectrum does an unusually bad job predicting current events, especially the thing where Democrats mostly want to maintain lockdown and Republicans mostly want to take their chances. I don’t have much to say about this, but I acknowledge it’s true, and you should update your models accordingly.

    I looked into this the other day (I was writing a post on it, forgot to save, and my computer crashed…)

    It’s definitely a real phenomenon, but not as strong as your phrasing suggests; people are mostly on the same page, it’s just that a higher percentage of the Right than the Left aren’t.

    E.g. this Reuters poll:

    In the survey, 81% said the country should continue social distancing initiatives, including ‘shelter at home’ orders, “despite the impact to the economy.” This includes 89% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans.

    Only 19% said they would like to end social distancing as soon as possible “to get the economy going again,” including 11% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans.

    This UK YouGov survey showed a bigger gap between UK parties, but only in whether they thought their government is underreacting, consistently only about a lizardman’s 10% thought they were overreacting

    • acymetric says:

      In the survey, 81% said the country should continue social distancing initiatives, including ‘shelter at home’ orders, “despite the impact to the economy.” This includes 89% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans.

      Only 19% said they would like to end social distancing as soon as possible “to get the economy going again,” including 11% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans.

      The way these questions were phrased heavily biases in favor of “support lock downs”, as most people who want to end the lockdowns still support other social distancing measures. It isn’t really surprising that “End social distancing as soon as possible” didn’t poll very well (and specifically adding “to get the economy going” didn’t help). Get back to me when a poll asks better questions.

      • albatross11 says:

        I see your point, but that’s a universally applicable reply to any polling data ever. The alternative being offered is reported sentiment of red tribe members as seen from some news coverage of protests trying to max out the controversy and outrage and some inferred beliefs based on made-up statistics involving acceptance of mortal risks that provide a nice tale with the right moral.

        Is there better polling data available?

      • Doctor Mist says:

        The way these questions were phrased heavily biases in favor of “support lock downs”

        Wow, no kidding. If you drill down by following the link to the actual questions, you see that not only does it completely conflate “social distancing” and “stay at home”, but the key question reads:

        As you may know, many states and local governments have issued “stay at home” or “shelter in place” orders for their residents as a result of the coronavirus/COVID-19. National leaders have also promoted a policy of social distancing and have given “stay at home” guidance. Recently, some national leaders said they want to see the country back at work before April 12, 2020. Some doctors and public health officials have expressed concern over the country going back to before April 12, 2020, noting that it is too soon, and the coronavirus/COVID-19 will continue to spread rapidly.Which of the following comes closest to your opinion?

        So: “Some people say A. Other people say B, because A is wrong. What do you think?”

    • SamChevre says:

      This was a really exceptionally useless survey. Almost everyone agrees with some amount of social distancing: the question is whether Massachusetts (stay at home strongly recommended, but parks are open for hiking, garden centers and hardware stores are open so people can work on their houses and yards) is reasonable, or whether Michigan (no traveling to property you own if you don’t live there full-time, abortions are essential but carseats aren’t, no selling garden supplies) is appropriate.

    • Beck says:

      Have you seen any more recent polls? That Reuters poll is 3-1/2 weeks old (March 26-27), and I think public opinion may have changed considerably since then.

  20. Bobobob says:

    If anyone needs to kill a few hours, I recommend The Witch and The Lighthouse, both directed by Robert Eggers and streaming on Netflix. They are far from perfect, but Eggers has Total Command of the Frame (TM) skills reminiscent of Kubrick and Villeneuve.

    These are not particularly happy or uplifting movies, so be warned.

    • I’m potentially interested, thanks for the recommendation. 🙂 Can you say something more about what you enjoyed about them?

      • keaswaran says:

        Note that the first one is actually spelled “The VVitch”. My boyfriend made me watch it a while back, and wants to make me watch the other one, despite me not usually liking horror films. The VVitch was really interesting because apparently much of the dialog was lifted from 17th century Massachusetts diaries, and it depicts what happens to a family that is kicked out of the religious community (in the first scene) for some subtle religious difference, and then finds heretical tendencies of a sort in the daughter (while dealing with nature and who-knows-what).

  21. viceni says:

    I think survive vs thrive does a fine job in the current environment. From the point of view of many places outside NYC, SF, and a couple other large metro areas, the existential threat is not COVID-19, but rather a government shutdown that threatens to ruin your economic well-being, upend your ability to take care of your family, and destroy a lifetime of pride in your job. From the perspective of rural areas, it can look like this whole thing was an overhyped media nothingburger (I don’t subscribe to this interpretation, but I’m saying it looks that way when the number of COVID deaths is small compared to the economic damage).

    So in your narrative, make the zombie a government bureaucrat telling you you can’t work instead of a virus. Now the narrative works very well. Leftists see nothing wrong with everyone staying home because things are abundant and the government can provide infinitely for us. The right sees scarcity around every corner and is willing to take a modest risk to defeat it.

    • Oldio says:

      I also wouldn’t write off that thing where the media decides this is a big deal and the crisis of the century and so right wingers automatically write it off as a credible threat.

    • Matt M says:

      +1

      And it’s not just red states. Most of my extended family lives in a solidly blue state. And I don’t know a single person who even has or ever had COVID, let alone had it bad enough to kill (or nearly kill) them. I don’t have numbers on this, but I suspect this is true for most people in the US and almost definitely true for most people in the US ex-NY.

      For most people, the risks of COVID are highly theoretical. And when I say theoretical I don’t mean to imply “there’s a chance COVID doesn’t really exist” or anything like that. I just mean most people can’t really emotionally process a risk that they haven’t personally felt or experienced. At our current numbers, we’ve basically destroyed over 100 jobs for every COVID death. Now maybe that’s an acceptable ratio, and maybe it isn’t – but it will create a society where basically everyone knows multiple people who lost their job because of lockdowns, and nobody who died from COVID.

      And even if you are still working and haven’t had a serious economic setback… to the extent that you’re seeing empty shelves on your grocery store, or that you had to cancel a wedding, or your father had to cancel an “elective” surgery, or you can’t engage in your basic hobbies anymore… all of that is because of lockdowns, not because of COVID.

      • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

        we’ve basically destroyed over 100 jobs for every COVID death

        Source? That sounds like something a politician would say.

          • Matt M says:

            Yeah, so long as you believe lockdown-related unemployment is at least 10M and COVID-related deaths are under 100K, you get to two orders of magnitude easily…

          • matkoniecz says:

            Really useful info would be jobs lost over death averted by economy destruction.

            But obviously it is basically impossible to get that info.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            Presumably at least some of those people will get their jobs back shortly after the lockdown ends, making their situation quite different to the indefinite loss that I think “destroyed” implies.

            But also, with typical valuations of a life of ~$10 million I think 250 jobs per life seems like a good deal.

          • Matt M says:

            Presumably at least some of those people will get their jobs back shortly after the lockdown ends

            Given that most jurisdictions have not announced specific days at which specific types of activity can resume, and that nearly all initially announced much shorter lockdowns and then extended them, this should come as little comfort…

          • Lambert says:

            How many of these jobs were ‘destroyed’ vs postponed?
            Once this is over, how many employers will re-hire much of their old workforce?

            And are actual deaths a meaningful proxy for averted deaths? It sounds like a comparison that makes sense when dealing with gaussian distributions but pandemics seem like the kind of thing that involve lots of power laws.

          • acymetric says:

            @Lambert

            Well, business will almost certainly still be limited when things do re-open, so best case is probably somewhere between 50% and 75%.

            Of course, best case assumes all businesses re-open, which isn’t very likely, so probably substantially less although I don’t know how to properly estimate that.

            The closed businesses might get replaced with new ones eventually, but how long likely depends on how long it takes banks to loosen lending standards again for potential business starters.

            To really get into the weeds, consider that demand/consumer behavior might be permanently altered (or at at least altered long term on the scale of years) in such a way that some of those jobs are no longer needed after the lock down. Maybe new jobs pop up to replace them, but again I wouldn’t expect that to happen immediately and shifting workers from one industry/type of work to another (that may or may not be in the same location/region) isn’t necessarily a simple transition.

          • John Schilling says:

            But also, with typical valuations of a life of ~$10 million I think 250 jobs per life seems like a good deal.

            That would imply that losing one’s job reduces the value of one’s life by no more than 0.4%, or maybe 0.3 QALY. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a metric where that would be the case. Even neglecting the economic effects, job loss is one of the major causes of lasting depression.

            And, “Oh, those jobs are all going to come back in a few months so nobody is really harmed” is highly wishful thinking on several fronts.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            That’s definitely the wrong metric to use. The more successful the lockdown is, the worse this number looks. The worse the lockdown, the better the number.

          • Matt M says:

            The more successful the lockdown is, the worse this number looks.

            If you define “success” as “minimizing COVID-related deaths” without regard for any other consequence then sure, I guess that would technically be true.

            Of course, if we put on our “AI risk” hat for a second we could also declare that if only we killed off the entire human race in a giant nuclear war, that would also look like a quite successful policy in terms of minimizing COVID-related deaths as well…

            Is the problem we’re having right now that our politicians are behaving too much like Clippy? Focusing on a demand for one specific outcome regardless of all consequences and completely ignoring any and all potentially conflicting values?

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Radu Floricica

            The actually number that matters is jobs lost per life SAVED. This is very difficult to tell, but a good place to look might be Sweden v. Denmark/Norway.

            Sweden’s death rate is approximately 2x those, so it looks as if total deaths saved by putting in a hard lockdown is about halving the death total. This won’t be 100% true, obviously, but is a good rule of thumb.

          • Matt M says:

            Sweden’s death rate is approximately 2x those, so it looks as if total deaths saved by putting in a hard lockdown is about halving the death total.

            Right. And getting back to our jobs lost : lives saved ratio, this means that if you believe not having lockdowns would cause deaths to double, then the approximate amount of “lives saved” is equal to the current amount of “lives lost” so we are, in fact, sacrificing well over 100 jobs for every life saved.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            @EchoChaos

            Yeah, that works. I’d also switch to jobs lost per QALY/DALY, because at least in the health reports here, about half the deaths look like they have few years left and not of high quality.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            How much better is Sweden’s economy doing compared to its neighbors?

          • But also, with typical valuations of a life of ~$10 million

            As I think someone pointed out earlier, if the valuation for an average live is $10 million, the valuation for the rest of the life of someone already old should be substantially less.

            Saying that may not be politically popular but it’s hard to see how it can not be true, unless one believes that the first sixty years have negative value.

      • acymetric says:

        I mentioned the same thing in the previous OT. My closest connection to Coronavirus is second hand (I know a person who had contact with someone who tested positive, but the person I know tested negative and did not get the virus).

        or your father had to cancel an “elective” surgery

        Coincidentally, I have a family member that was basically immobilized by some serious back pain about a month ago. They will ultimately likely require surgery (tried several different pain killers with no real success), but it will likely be several months before that is even a remote possibility. Which makes for a pretty miserable several months, and also means a bunch of time with a physical therapist to gain back leg strength after not walking for 3-6 months whenever it is finally able to happen.

        More generally, “elective” procedures probably need to open back up sooner rather than later anyway, or you probably start to see upticks in other preventable deaths in the coming months/years (uncaught heart disease, uncaught cancers, so on and so forth). Maybe not facelifts and tummy tucks, but preventative care, screenings, and things that have significant impact on quality of life.

        • eric23 says:

          Not everyone is as lucky as you. One member of my extended family is in critical condition right now and likely to die. Another was intubated, but has recovered. A friend of a friend of mine, who I once met, has died. These are unconnected cases – the three of them all live(d) in different countries…

          • acymetric says:

            I’m very sorry to hear about your family members, and truly hope that they are able to pull through.

            I’m not suggesting that nobody knows anyone who is sick or has died. We’re at over 40,000 deaths, obviously someone knows all those people. Just pointing out that there are a lot of people (a majority of people in the US, most likely) who don’t which might explain some of the differing opinions on how strong a lockdown should be. Degree of connection to a coronavirus victim is probably very different in the hotspot areas like NY and others than it is in places that still have pretty limited numbers of cases (I live in such a place).

        • Garrett says:

          > More generally, “elective” procedures probably need to open back up sooner rather than later anyway

          The biggest problem is that those require PPE which is what’s currently in short supply.

    • John Schilling says:

      It doesn’t help that the personal Idiosyncrasies of the GOP’s current leader had him wildly broadcasting the “coronavirus is no big deal!” line at a critical time when I’m pretty sure “You all need my Strong Leadership to save you from this Deadly Chinese Plague that the Damn Dirty Globalists have brought to our shores” would have worked better for him.

      But, yes, Red Tribe was thriving along just fine until the lockdowns put a big chunk of them out of work, and would probably still be thriving if there had never been lockdowns. Partly because Red Tribe mostly distant from the great cosmopolitan cities where COVID-19 has been doing most of its spreading. But also because Red Tribe thinks nothing of taking jobs whose career mortality rate is higher than an actual COVID-19 infection. To Red Tribe, a ~1% chance of premature unexpected agonizing death is, meh, part of life and definitely better than being unemployed.

      Now a huge chunk of them are unemployed, and others quite reasonably fear being unemployed in the near future. Their jobs aren’t amenable to telecommuting, and their employers may be out of business when this is over. And their community and family life has been disrupted and diminished. Over a virus that, for most of them, hasn’t seriously sickened anyone they know.

      Red Tribe is not thriving. Red Tribe is trying desperately to survive. But the the thing that Red Tribe is trying to survive, is a bunch of elite liberal reporters they already don’t trust telling them about a disease that seems to mostly affect frightened elite liberals in their cosmopolitan enclaves, and which conspicuously Democratic governors like Newsom and Cuomo and Whitmer have used as an excuse to wholly upend their lives for the indefinite future. Red Tribe, facing what it perceives as a threat to its survival, is turning to its leaders for protection against that threat.

      • Bobobob says:

        That’s an interesting point about red-tribers being more likely to have jobs with a 1 percent mortality rate (military, police, construction, truck drivers, etc.). I think that does a lot to explain the comments I’ve been seeing on social media.

        I would add (speculatively) that blue-collar workers are more likely to have chronic health conditions, smoke at higher rates, and/or are overweight, and so have long since learned to live with the prospect of increased mortality. So a liberal yelling “I don’t want a 1 in 100 chance of dying from Coronavirus!” will very likely rub them the wrong way.

        • Matt M says:

          I’d also guess that red-tribe is probably much more likely to indulge in higher risk hobbies and recreational activities than blue tribe as well. Things like shooting, hunting, motorcycles, auto racing, full contact sports, ATVs, etc. Things where risk of death is real, but minimal (<1%).

          I feel like red tribe people are far more likely to have encountered scenarios in their life that required a thought process that goes something like "This could kill me, but there are things I can do to reduce the likelihood of my getting killed to odds that are pretty darn low," and decide to proceed because the benefits are worth the risk.

          • John Schilling says:

            Yes, and an awful lot of Blue Tribe seems to want to live in a space where all things are either Intolerably Dangerous or Completely Safe and no one ever has to make a cost-benefit analysis where probability of death is a factor or risk is a thing that requires personal mitigation. This isn’t unique to Blue Tribe, but I think it is much more common there.

            COVID-19 is in an ugly place where A: it can’t possibly be spun as Completely Safe, and B: there are things we can do that if we squint and tilt our head just right look like they might make it Completely Safe, but C: really won’t, at least not any time this year. Therefore it is Absolutely Intolerable that we ever stop doing these things, even as we proceed past the point of diminishing returns and into the realm of net harm.

            And they’ll probably flip to Completely Safe prematurely, on the basis of a declining trend, then flop back to Intolerably Dangerous on the rebound.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            Thanks for this, John. I’ve been trying to put my finger on the source of my feeling of dread, and this captures it perfectly.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        To Red Tribe, a ~1% chance of premature unexpected agonizing death is, meh, part of life and definitely better than being unemployed.

        Are there any jobs that currently have a yearly 1% mortality rate? Even Alaskan king crab fisherman mortality rate is less than 1/3 that. The next most dangerous occupation is something like 0.1% fatality rate.

        And, how many people with, say, black or brown lung actually don’t give a shit about it? This seems more like one of those things you don’t care about right up until you get those delayed consequences, at which point you are ticked about being forgotten, invisible, ignored, etc.

        • John Schilling says:

          Are there any jobs that currently have a yearly 1% mortality rate?

          Why is 365.2422 days the relevant timescale? I’d think the mean time between pandemics would be more relevant, in which case yes absolutely. And job-related mortality isn’t uniformly distributed in time; fishermen put to sea in (hopefully imperfect) storms, policemen work overtime during riots and crime waves, etc.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Because time between pandemics is a useless measure here.

            The reason people don’t care about increased overall premature mortality is the expectation that they will get a lot of “good” years in before they die. The expect they are highly likely to build a nest egg, get married, have 2.1 kids, etc. Dying in 20 years is not the same as dying this year. Everybody dies eventually.

            Whereas people get very well pissed off by big increased short term risk, things like the bean counters increasing profit on Deepwater Horizon.

            So, when the bodies start piling up, the “no biggie” attitude goes away rapidly.

          • acymetric says:

            [sic]They expect they are highly likely to build a nest egg,

            Anyone still expecting that in the next 5 to 10 years?

        • matkoniecz says:

          I interpreted it as “over total time of employment”

        • Oldio says:

          To prime/working age people the death rate is probably less than 1%. IIRC ~1% is the whole population death rate, which includes elderly people, chainsmokers, etc.
          And red tribe is probably, for a variety of reasons(smokes more, higher obesity, poorer, etc) more blase about a shorter life expectancy than blue tribe, and for a variety of reasons(more likely to be part of a church, can’t telecommute, bigger sports fans, etc) more affected by social distancing.
          If you think of it as 1% chance we lose grandma/grandpa/mom/dad/uncle Joe, plus a lower than that but still there chance I die, and a snowballs chance the kids die, it’s a risk calculation that makes a lot more sense.

      • albatross11 says:

        My guess is that a lot of this has to do with the main concentrations of infection now being NYC and surroundings, and to a lesser extent, the West coast. If we get the virus sweeping through red states and sending a substantial number of people to the hospital or the morgue, then it will become a much more pressing and urgent issue for the red tribe.

        • keaswaran says:

          My understanding is that southwest Georgia and southern Louisiana are actually doing far worse than anywhere other than New York.

          https://geodacenter.github.io/covid/map.html

          But of course, these being red tribe places, the media isn’t talking about it (except occasional mentions of New Orleans, that blue dot in the middle), so most of the red tribe isn’t even aware of it.

          • EchoChaos says:

            But of course, these being red tribe places

            No, they’re African-American, which is culturally similar to the red tribe, but notably distinct. Louisiana is even run by a Democrat governor.

            Blacks are getting absolutely ruined by this both for cultural reasons and health reasons.

          • Loriot says:

            I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more about it now that the governor of Georgia has decided to lift the lockdown.

      • DinoNerd says:

        That point about many blue collar jobs being inherently riskier fits my experience. My father was a factory worker. Cousins, neighbours etc. mostly did not work in offices. Their work was both riskier than white collar work, and more likely to involve painful short term physical consequences. And this was normal, not something to be especially upset about.

        I’ve been explaining my own sneaking suspicion that a one time, 1%-ish risk of death isn’t as bad as it’s being painted by me being old enough to have spent a lot of time with people who came of age before antibiotics, whose parents knew that it was unlikely that all their children would survive until adulthood.

        But maybe it’s simpler than that, and it’s my working class upbringing talking.

        Meanwhile I work in an office, and am now comfortably working from home with no expectation of my employer foundering or even having a round of layoffs; they are still paying plenty of people who can’t WFH in current circumstances, never mind those of us who are. And I certainly don’t mind having my risks reduced. But I tend to sympathize with anyone who’s lost their income and would rather go back to work and take their chances with the virus.

      • Clutzy says:

        But, yes, Red Tribe was thriving along just fine until the lockdowns put a big chunk of them out of work, and would probably still be thriving if there had never been lockdowns. Partly because Red Tribe mostly distant from the great cosmopolitan cities where COVID-19 has been doing most of its spreading. But also because Red Tribe thinks nothing of taking jobs whose career mortality rate is higher than an actual COVID-19 infection. To Red Tribe, a ~1% chance of premature unexpected agonizing death is, meh, part of life and definitely better than being unemployed.

        I’ve really never seen a stronger endorsement of red tribe than this.

    • JPNunez says:

      There are 22 millions of unemployment claims in the usa right now. If that’s what it takes for “everyone to know someone who lost their job”, you’d expect to really pay attention at around that same level of deaths.

      That’s a silly threshold of deaths before you change your mind to think the risk is serious.

      Besides, it’s not like those jobs _had_ to be lost. The situation could have been better managed, but America just fucking hates job security. Maybe that’s a good thing! Maybe the recovery will be faster than if the government had done something, maybe not, but keep in mind that this is also part of the government policy.

      • Randy M says:

        Certainly, the impact of death is much more, emotionally and economically vs unemployment. But the latter is non-negligible; so what’s the ratio?
        No one is going to agree, as there is a wide range of reasonable numbers.

        • JPNunez says:

          It’s probably incorrect to compare both; deaths are obviously permanent, but jobs can be recovered. Something more comparable is to check is how long will they remain jobless. 10% of the population without a job for a year would be disastrous, so the better outcome would be to do the biggest effort right now, even if it leads to 20% of the population being unemployed, but have them return to work sooner.

          Obviously the numbers would be the same if 20% is unemployed for 6 months, but I have to wonder what level of disaster would it take to get to that point. Maybe it will just happen because the economy is bad enough in the coming months.

          I think the correct solution is to work out how to make the economy work in these conditions. Train people to run absurd amounts of tests, hire them to clean the offices and public spaces more, tons of monitors for quarantines.

          I assume the covid will be with us for a few years so we may as well transform the economy to work under those conditions. There’s no returning to normalcy. Force capitalism to adapt.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            The proper measure is difference in unemployment numbers.

            How many restaurants are staying in business with an uncontrolled pandemic in full force? In a day and age where people know what the actual disease vectors are?

          • Clutzy says:

            10% of the population without a job for a year would be disastrous,

            If you think that you have to think lockdown was a mistake, because we are probably at or around 50% probability of 10% unemployment in March 2021.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            I think the lockdown was a mistake.

            I think we need a category system for plagues like we have for hurricanes.

            Hurricanes:
            Cat 1: It’s just some rain, bro.
            Cat 2: Bring in the lawn furniture
            Cat 3: Buy booze. Also water.
            Cat 4: Eh, board up your windows.
            Cat 5: Fly, you fools!

            For plagues, we need
            Cat 1: Literally just the flu, bro.
            Cat 2: Modest spread/mortality. Unlucky people might die, but most everyone else doesn’t need to do much. SARS/H1N1.
            Cat 3: Fast spread/modest mortality. Practice social distancing, old and infirm should isolate. COVID-19.
            Cat 4: Fast spread/high mortality. Young and healthy people at risk. Lockdowns. Spanish Flu.
            Cat 5: Zombie apocalypse.

            Some people thought it was a 1-2, some thought it was a 4. We erred on the side of caution, which is completely understandable, and went with the Cat 4 response. It turns out it’s a Cat 3. So end the lockdowns, but people should voluntarily limit exposure, wear masks and gloves, etc.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            gloves

            Hoo boy.

          • Statismagician says:

            Add the step where everybody learns sterile technique in elementary school and personal stockpiles of PPE are some combination of mandatory/government-provided/tax-deductible, and I’m on board. The issue is that they don’t and aren’t, so saying ‘voluntary social distancing and mask use’ fails due to lowest common denominator compliance ruining things for the rest of us.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Conrad Honcho:
            This:

            Add the step where everybody learns sterile technique in elementary school

            That’s the big stumbling block to make gloves particularly useful. Otherwise they are just a big collection vector for stop that you would wash off your hands but now won’t “because you have gloves on”.

            This isn’t something that infects upon skin contact, through small breaks in the skin, or the like. In addition, I’m highly, highly unlikely to infect you via touch, and this isn’t mitigated by you wearing gloves. I’m not saying gloves can’t be useful in some manner, but, I think any usefulness at a population level is likely mitigated by risk compensation.

            That cashier wearing a single pair of gloves for an entire shift? Not so helpful.

            Now, my wife brought home a box of gloves to be prepared for if one of use gets sick and needs care in the house. There you start to be able to engage in proper sterile technique every time you enter/leave the “dirty” room, etc.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            All right, that makes sense. I was thinking of my wife who wears gloves when she goes into the grocery store and then takes them off when she leaves. But she’s not an idiot, so there we go.

          • albatross11 says:

            The left end of the bell curve will be with us always.

          • albatross11 says:

            Note that food service workers around here have to wear gloves when preparing/handling food. I have no idea if that’s helpful–you do occasionally see someone wearing their gloves while taking out the trash….

          • acymetric says:

            Obviously the numbers would be the same if 20% is unemployed for 6 months,

            It seems pretty likely we’ll be at least at 20% through the end of 2020.

            @albatross11

            Note that food service workers around here have to wear gloves when preparing/handling food. I have no idea if that’s helpful–you do occasionally see someone wearing their gloves while taking out the trash….

            They are supposed to wear gloves while taking out the trash. To prevent getting trash on their hands (also, some of those trash bags have pesticides and other chemicals in/on them to discourage bugs in and around the restaurant). If you see an employee taking the trash out without gloves, you should be mildly concerned.

            The key is that they take those gloves off, wash their hands, and then put on new gloves.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Note that food service workers around here have to wear gloves when preparing/handling food. I have no idea if that’s helpful–you do occasionally see someone wearing their gloves while taking out the trash….

            As acyemtric said, food service workers wearing gloves is precisely due to the fear of the kinds of things that CAN be spread via touching food. Some of this is hygiene theater, some local health service bureaucracy, some of it is corporate CYA, but there are plenty of disease routes from someone to food to you.

            “Employees must wash hands before returning to work”

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            we are probably at or around 50% probability of 10% unemployment in March 2021.

            I don’t think this is so. And even if so, it probably won’t be exactly the same 10% that aren’t working now, so 10% not out of work for a year.

          • Clutzy says:

            I don’t think this is so. And even if so, it probably won’t be exactly the same 10% that aren’t working now, so 10% not out of work for a year.

            Its true that that 10% wont be all the same people, I didn’t really account for that and its a good point. But BLS has us at about 18% already, probably peaking significantly over 10%. A 10% rebound is hard at any time, but also there are plenty of people speculating we were due for a correction anyways before C19. Its probably gonna be tough to have a real V shaped employment recovery in that sort of environment.

            Also, IDK how significant this number ends up being with regards to the total population, but a lot of the people who are really going to be hurt I don’t think are eligible to claim Unemployment. The sole props and small business owners. IIRC when I was working as a contract attorney you could not apply for it when your contract ends.

          • The Nybbler says:

            There’s always people speculating we’re due for a correction. I agree there won’t be a V-shaped recovery, but it will be for two reasons

            1) Government won’t let the boot off entirely. They’ll keep it on hard enough to ruin many businesses while avoiding blame in the eyes of those who can sneer that if you can’t do business with only 50% of your capacity, you shouldn’t do it at all.

            2) Overly generous unemployment benefits will keep labor markets tight while unemployment remains high.

          • keaswaran says:

            > > 10% of the population without a job for a year would be disastrous,

            > If you think that you have to think lockdown was a mistake

            Not if you think it would be even *more* disastrous to have 0.5% of people dying and 20% having several weeks of being too weak to move around the house.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Not if you think it would be even *more* disastrous to have 0.5% of people dying and 20% having several weeks of being too weak to move around the house.

            And where do you get that 20% from?

  22. baconbits9 says:

    Just wildness in the oil market.

    Futures are simple (allegedly): April’s oil contract stands tomorrow, so if you have bought oil on an April contract then you can request delivery of that oil tomorrow. April oil collapsed last night hitting lows in the $11.30 a barrel range. May oil contracts are currently still in the $22 range (down ~ 12% vs April down about 39%), if you can take delivery of oil, store it and then delivery it in one month then you can achieve a 98% return on your money in one month buy buying an April contract and selling a May contract. If you can hold for 2 months then you can achieve a 121% return at prices right now.

    • matkoniecz says:

      What is the storage cost and transport cost (twice) of oil?

      98% return would be with both being 0.

      • baconbits9 says:

        Its less than $11 a barrel to store and transport oil. We can tell this because the spread between May and June, June and July, July and August etc contracts are all much less than $11 a barrel.

      • Jake says:

        I know nothing about the oil industry, but a quick google search shows that you can buy a used 8400 gallon oil tanker trailer (the kind you see on the highway) for somewhere between $10-40k. At $11 profit per gallon, that’s a whole bunch of $50k bills sitting on the ground if you own a truck that you can drive to go pick up those tanks. There could be laws against how long it can sit in a tanker, or it could go bad…I really don’t know, but it seems obvious to do that, if you have the ability to pull the trailer.

        • Matt M says:

          You almost certainly cannot drive/pull such a trailer without at least a basic CDL, and probably a more fancy one that requires some level of HAZMAT certification (any truck drivers here to help me on this?)

          • SamChevre says:

            You’d need at least 2 CDL endorsements – tank and hazmat.

            But it’s not that hard to just hire a truck driver–which also means you don’t need to buy a truck, just a trailer. My brother is a truck driver–he says $2.50-$2.75 a mile for that set of endorsements.

          • John Schilling says:

            Yeah, around here the standard way for farmers to store the fuel for their irrigation pumps is in a semi trailer blocked up next to the pump, and swapped out for a full one when it runs dry.

            On a larger scale, a significant fraction of the world’s supertankers, and I’d wager a majority at the moment, are being used more as vaguely mobile oil storage depots than as transportation systems. You don’t have the option of detaching the propulsion hardware there, but the economics often still favor “just fill it and park it” over building tank farms.

          • toastengineer says:

            Didn’t a couple people on here say they were investing heavily in companies that do exactly that?

        • baconbits9 says:

          Price update: April Futures are now priced at $8.05 a barrel, May contracts are 22.74, so a 182% profit on the trade.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Updates are completely worthless, last print was under $6 a barrel for April.

          • baconbits9 says:

            $2.50!!!!!

            There was a large bankruptcy over the weekend for a Singapore based oil trading company (fraud related) I wonder who is going to get carried out on this action. I have no idea what the short/long setup is for April deliveries but it seems likely that this action is going to break some bank/fund/firm and they are currently liquidating positions.

            EDIT: Also, my apologies I have been saying April/May when I should have been saying May/June.

        • actinide meta says:

          An oil barrel is 42 gallons. $11 per barrel is $0.26/gal or $2,200 per 8400gal tanker truck. That’s probably still high compared to the *depreciation* on the truck over a month, but I’m not sure it’s worth buying one to do this trade. Also at some point all the existing tanks are already being used for oil storage.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Good catch.

            Since we are talking oil- oil markets appear to be saying that demand will be back to normal* around december 2020. That is when month to month futures prices basically flatten with a similar price per month difference.

            *normal being no longer any large disruptions due to shutdowns/reopenings/shutdowns, not 2019 demand

          • craftman says:

            Also – a single futures contract for oil is a minimum 1,000 bbl (42,000 gallons), so you’d better be able to purchase 5 of those trucks and keep them stored somewhere for a month.

  23. no one special says:

    Tech support issue:

    Something funny with the site stylesheet: when gravatars fail to load*, the image size becomes large enough that they overlap the entire comment, making links in comments unclickable.

    * This is almost certainly because I’m using tracker blockers: either Ghostery (probably) or Firefox’s new “Enhanced Tracking Protection” (which is on by default these days). Feel free to bin this, unless you think there might be people coming by with this sort of extension often enough that you want to take it into consideration.

    • Exa says:

      I also had this issue, and found that it could be solved by using ublock origin (other blockers may also have this functionality, I don’t know) to remove the page element that tries to load the gravatars.

      • Nick says:

        +1. I have Firefox with Enhanced Tracking Protection set to Standard and uBlock Origin and don’t have any issues. I don’t know how ETP behaves on strict, though.

    • I have a different issue, one I mentioned a long time ago. I normally go through unread messages using ~ n (without the space between). Quite often, probably more than one time in ten, instead of going to the next unread message, it takes me to the top.

      Is this a problem other people have, or something special about my setup?

      • Randy M says:

        Are you sure you aren’t clicking anywhere one the screen? This will deselect the text and then start the search function from the top.

        • Nick says:

          Last time David mentioned this I suggested that, but he said it doesn’t seem to help. It’s possible the behavior is browser dependent or that some plugin is messing with it.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        If you’re willing to try out a change to your flow, might I recommend opting-in to the beta autohide comment widgets? (@Bakkot plz make them official I love them)

        Of course it comes with its own set of annoying quirks and oddities, but probably worth a spin.

      • Mark V Anderson says:

        Yes I have this problem occasionally. I have probably clicked somewhere I shouldn’t, but I have no idea what I did. It’s almost like the system is trying to catch me. When I’m not paying close attention, it jumps to the top. I don’t even know how to do this on purpose. What would cause that?

      • noyann says:

        I have this after posting (but not after editing) a comment.

  24. James Miller says:

    If in-person classes don’t start in the fall, I think that college professors should all help teach online high school classes. Each professor could teach one seminar on a topic of their choosing with a maximum enrollment of, say, 8, so there can be meaningful Zoom discussions. Colleges, especially state schools, should announce they will be doing this as a way to get political support for bailouts.

    • eric23 says:

      Aren’t college professors already teaching college students online, and doing whatever research is possible within hygiene guidelines?

      • James Miller says:

        Yes, and this means we are rapidly improving our ability to teach online. But teaching online makes most of us less socially valuable and so to maintain our salaries we should expect to do more work. If in-person classes don’t start in the fall, lots of colleges will face a financial catastrophe and so colleges should be maximizing their chances of getting government bailouts.

        • albatross11 says:

          Could some universities offer their college level classes (with credit) to a wider range of students, too? I mean, right now, you can get college credit in high school by taking AP classes or by taking classes at a junior college. Why not also add in online classes? There’s no reason at all a bright 15 year old shouldn’t be able to check the boxes needed for graduation from high school with classes that will also give then college credit.

          • James Miller says:

            Yes, and this could be an additional course of revenue for colleges.

          • The one problem with this is that our schooling system, K-12 and college, is heavily dependent on giving tests, since part of what it claims to produce is evidence on how able a student is. If tests matter, there is an incentive to cheat, and cheating is harder to prevent online.

            One solution is to assume that, for the moment, schooling is about learning things not testing. We could imitate what I gather is the Oxford model, where the important testing is at the end, and assume that that will be done in realspace far enough in the future so the pandemic is no longer a serious bar.

            Another alternative is to make all tests oral, using online video, with the teacher photographing the face of the student and at least the potential of later checking it. That’s time expensive for large classes but not unworkably so for small ones. And interaction, online or in realspace, is more important for small classes.

            For large classes, have the T.A.’s do the live testing?

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            The models my professors have been using is “exams are now take-home, download it and submit your answers electronically”. Anti-cheating measures have been either “please don’t cheat, honor system” or “this exam is now explicitly open-book.”

            However, I’ve also heard of classes using a service called ProctorU. Basically, you take the test online and they can see your screen through software and your face through webcam. Also you as the student pay $50 for the privilege of taking your exam, which maybe shouldn’t surprise me when buying your own textbooks is a thing. (Unlike sky-high textbook prices, this fee can’t be avoided via blatant piracy.)

            Of course, while this offers more protection against cheating than a take-home exam, some of my friends have found some fairly clever ways around it.

          • matkoniecz says:

            you take the test online and they can see your screen through software and your face through webcam.

            How it is supposed to protect against anything? Or is going to fail any student who stopped looking directly at screen with that software?

            EDIT: see below, I marked a misleading part

            For example it seems clear that secondary monitor placed behind or entire gallery of notes placed behind monitor would be undetected.

            Sounds like “you pay me 50$ to use honor system”. At that point I would advocate cheating solely to bring down their business model.

          • FLWAB says:

            I’ve used ProctorU and let me tell you: they are as thourough as they can be while still having the test online, and they are frightening to anyone who knows anything about computer security.

            Basically in order to take my test I need to show through the webcam that I was alone in a room with a closed door and that there was nothing in the room that was banned for this test (like notes or paper or a cell phone, etc). I had to pan the camera around the entire room until the proctor was satisfied. Once the test started the webcam had to stay on me and I was not allowed to move out of sight of the camera.

            The scary part (and the part that made it effective) was that I was required to install their proprietary program which took control of my computer completely. It allowed them to see exactly what was going on onscreen but also to have control over the mouse, keyboard, everything. From a security point of view I was really not okay with this: with the level of control they had they could have installed any number of viruses or worms or what have you on my computer. On the other hand, it pretty much guaranteed I couldn’t cheat using the computer. So…it gets the job done, but at the cost of a massive security concern.

          • matkoniecz says:

            OK, with human checking room it makes more sense and makes $50 fee more reasonable and I retract my earlier claims.

            Still, with my twitching and moving I would likely be a false positive.

            And yes, I would use a fresh OS without any personal data and reinstall it immediately after test to get rid of the malware.

          • Lambert says:

            That’s why you sit it in a vm, with the host adding the odd packet full of random bytes into the upload stream.

            And find some provocative way to dress.

    • keaswaran says:

      I’m not sure what useful is accomplished by giving each college professor one high school seminar with 8 students. I’m pretty sure that with these numbers, most high school students still won’t get a seminar, and it’s not clear what the others are getting out of this, given that it’s an additional class for the college professor on top of everything else we’re attempting to teach through moderately ineffective means.

      • James Miller says:

        Yes, the numbers should work so that all high school students (or perhaps all high school seniors) get a seminar. The main benefit to colleges would be to get positive publicity that will help their lobbying efforts. We expect manufactures to retool, if they can, to make masks or ventilators. Colleges should as well be willing to do their part to reduce the social harm of COVID-19 by increasing and somewhat redirecting their efforts.

        • Why are you assuming that the college professors should be teaching high school this way instead of teaching college this way and leaving high school to the high school teachers?

          One advantage to your high school seminar taught by a professor model is that it might generate useful information for college admissions. I have done interviewing of applicants to my alma mater, and I think it produced better information than the paper record. Of the students I have interviewed so far, the one with the strongest paper record was, in my judgement, one of the weakest applicants, and the one outstanding applicant did not have a better paper record than most of the others. So a professor who teaches several such seminars has the opportunity to spot intellectually outstanding students and pass the information on to his school’s admissions people.

          You might even set it up so that the students in a seminar from University X are all ones applying, or at least planning to apply, to X for admission.

          • James Miller says:

            Until in-person classes resume professors are less valuable to society and so if we are going to maintain our salaries with the help of taxpayer bailouts it seems reasonable that we increase our teaching workload.
            Teaching high school classes would likely do more good than teaching extra online college courses. Also, from a practical viewpoint, colleges, I believe, would have an easier time getting bailouts if they offered in this crisis to help teach high school students than if they promised to, say, do more research or teach extra college classes. Teachers’ unions should mind since they would fully expect professors to stop teaching high school classes once the crisis ends.

    • zzzzort says:

      I’m very doubtful of most college professor’s value added as high school teachers. Maybe professors from more teaching focused schools, but I would expect the median R1 professor to be worse than the median high school teacher at teaching high school.

      Also, people to teach intro classes is currently a marginal expense for many universities, met through adjuncts. Reducing instruction/upping teaching loads for tenured faculty and cutting adjunct positions is going to be the lowest hanging fruit for balancing a budget; expanding teaching would work against that.

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        On average, it’s much harder to teach high school students than college students.

        Sufficiently motivated high school students could benefit, though.

  25. n-alexander says:

    How do we deal with this problem:
    1. suppose I predict a pandemic every time when somebody sneezes. I would have predicted this one. Does that make me one of the smart people? Obviously not. But this is relatively easy to filter out. Or is it?
    2. suppose the probability of COVID19 becoming a pandemic was 1%. So the smart people said it was not going to happen. But it did – after all, the probability was not 0. Are they less smart now?

    Now apply this to policy making. We know what steps were and were not taken. With hind sight we know if it was the right thing to do. But that is very different from how those decisions were made. How well can we judge the decision making that actually went on, when probabilities had not yet collapsed into reality?

    • Gelaarsd Schaap says:

      What do you mean when you say “the probability of X was Y”?

    • Randy M says:

      So the smart people said it was not going to happen. But it did – after all, the probability was not 0. Are they less smart now?

      That depends on if they recommended doing things that would mitigate the damage by 1% or so. Or the 1% of the most cost effective prevention measures.
      I don’t know what those are, but I’m not really competing to be a smart person.

    • eric23 says:

      1. Yes, it’s easy to filter. You made one correct prediction and many incorrect ones.
      2. These people made one incorrect prediction and many correct ones. That is a general recipe for being “smart”.

      • EchoChaos says:

        But I can be “smart” but useless by always predicting “no pandemic” because pandemics are really rare in first world countries, so that’s not terribly valuable.

    • Matt M says:

      Isn’t the answer something like what Scott does in his prediction topics?

      The predictor needs to assign a confidence value to their prediction, and we judge them based on whether or not they’re right 99% of the time for any and all predictions they make with 99% confidence, yes?

      • n-alexander says:

        yes, but in honesty my first two questions are just a lead-in to the policy issue. You can assign weights to your predictions, but that’s rather theoretical. You cannot assign weights to policy – you either do or you don’t. Doing a 50% shutdown because you’re 50% sure that a pandemic will happen makes no sense – you get the worst of both worlds.

        In reality, doing a 50% shutdown may well be just the right thing to do. But not because you’re 50% sure. So it still makes the point I want to make.

        • AKL says:

          You can assign weights to policy. Made up numbers for same of argument.
          100% shutdown means no one can leave their house under any circumstances
          90% shutdown means leaving the house is OK only for critical supply chain workers and only with individual pre-approval of the shutdown czar

          50% shutdown means non-essential business are forced to close
          40% shutdown means people are required to wear masks out of the house
          30% shutdown means people are advised to wear masks out of the house and businesses are advised to close if possible

          10% shutdown means high risk individuals are advised to avoid air travel

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            You can, but the point is you probably shouldn’t in many cases. “50% confident that there will be a catastrophe unless we do a full 100% lockdown” does not imply “we should do a 50% lockdown”.

          • Matt M says:

            Indeed. If the actual situation is such that a 100% lockdown would eradicate the disease, but a 50% lockdown will do no good whatsoever, then implementing a 50% lockdown is terrible policy, regardless of how bad the disease ever was in the first place.

            (Note: This is a large reason why I oppose current lockdown policy)

  26. I’m a “Big Five” hawk, so this is no surprise coming from me… but the “openness to new experiences” theory of left vs. right seems predictive here. Lockdown is something new, and thus, appealing to liberals, and “getting things back to the way they used to be” is conservative.

    • Skeptical Wolf says:

      Would you be willing to talk at greater length about your Big 5 hawkishness and what led to you that opinion?

      I’ve personally become deeply skeptical of Big 5 analyses because my personal experience doesn’t match their predictions well at all. Specifically, the “reliability” and “tidiness” components of conscientiousness that seem to be combined by every big 5 instrument I’ve seen are negatively correlated in my experience (the most personally reliable people I know tend to produce a lot of clutter and the tidiest people I know are near the bottom of my list of people to call in an emergency). Also, I am personally very high in openness (it’s consistently the highest magnitude result when I take a big 5 test) but lean more conservative politically. This does not make me unusual in my experience, big-5 measured openness and political leanings seem to be uncorrelated in my social circles.

      I’m well aware that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. Can you point me at something reliable that would indicate that my personally-contradictory experiences should be filed under “small sample size”?

      • Well... says:

        the most personally reliable people I know tend to produce a lot of clutter and the tidiest people I know are near the bottom of my list of people to call in an emergency

        My experience is pretty close to the opposite of this.

        But I am willing to say the Big 5 traits are probably not as good at predicting one’s political persuasion as they are at coherently predicting what the rest of your personality is like given just a few data points about it.

      • FLWAB says:

        Well, how are you defining “reliability”?

        Because I’m a very untidy person, but it’s true: if a friend called me at 2:00 AM needing help I’d almost certainly help him. In that sense I’m a “reliable” person. But it’s also true that if that same friend asks me to, say, take out the trash or fill out a TPS report before Wednesday, or not to forget to lock the front door, there’s a good chance I’m going to flake out and let him down. Getting called in an emergency is easy: “I need help, do the thing right now to help me please.” Straightforward. Remembering everything I have to do this week and mailing the rent check on time is hard. In that sense I am a very unreliable person.

        • Randy M says:

          That’s a good distinction. I’m trying to train my kids that “It’s okay to forget; it’s not okay to forget that you forget.”
          In other words, forgetfulness is a near universal human failing that we have the ability to mitigate with notes, habits, or more technological means. Neglecting to do so is the real sin.

        • Skeptical Wolf says:

          “Reliability” in this context is, I think, more focused on following through on commitments. My observation is that probability of flaking out does not seem to be positively correlated with untidiness. It may be negatively correlated, but I’m much less confident in that idea.

          Stepping outside the realm of personal experience, let’s take look at the wikipedia definition of the trait:

          Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting).

          This identifies several characteristics that are all grouped under this label: Carefulness, Planning, Diligence, Tidiness, Punctuality, Dutifulness, Self-Discipline, Deliberation, and Systemicness. My observation is that that correlations among this group of traits seem far too weak to use in the kind of predictions Big 5 tests seem to get used in (for example, hiring decisions) and sometimes are actually negative.

          My working theory is that there is a substantial amount of typical-minding built into the instruments. Someone observed “I keep my desk neat so I can find my notes so I can remember what I’ve told people I’ll do so those things actually get done” and jumped from there to the assumption “people with neat desks are more likely to actually honor their commitments”. But that could also come from personal annoyance at being uncharitably mismeasured.

    • Well... says:

      What seems more accurate to me is that the “left” might be higher in terms of perceiving this situation as a kind of wakeup call: that people should have been following directions from central authorities, that we should have been more heavily subsidizing healthcare and related industries, etc.

  27. dndnrsn says:

    Hello, and welcome to the 27th instalment of my Biblical scholarship effortpost series. So far, of the New Testament, we’ve seen the gospels, four documents from the mid-to-late first century about Jesus (as well as the weird noncanonical one). You will recall Acts, the second volume of Luke, which continues that gospel’s story. Most of the rest of our coverage of the New Testament will focus on one of the stars of Acts, Paul – more specifically, on his letters. From our standpoint, Paul is an extremely important figure: Christianity would not be what it is without him. His letters, the authentic ones at least, are our earliest sources for Christianity (older than any of the gospels; it’s not unheard of for books about the New Testament to begin with his letters, rather than the gospels). This instalment briefly introduces him and considers various issues, before we get into his letters.

    My plan is to look at Paul’s letters one-by-one, starting with the letters that all or almost all scholars think are authentic (actually written by Paul himself), followed by the ones where there is significant dispute, ending with the ones that most scholars believe to be pseudonymous. In each case, we’ll consider the dating of the letters and theories as to their composition (as we’ll see, there are a few cases where some scholars don’t think the letter as we have it is the original form, but rather that some mixing-up has happened) along with the provenance of each letter. We’ll also, where relevant, look at how Paul’s letters line up with Acts.

    While this series has generally focused on Biblical scholarship, we’ll have to get into the weeds of Paul’s theology a bit more, because it is so important for understanding Paul. Especially important is Paul’s relationship to Judaism and his understanding of how the rules of Judaism function in light of his understanding of Christ.

    With that said, we’ll begin next time with 1 Thessalonians, widely considered to be the earliest of Paul’s letters. This also makes it the earliest document in the New Testament, in fact the earliest surviving Christian document.

    (Sorry it’s been so long since the last one; I’ve been busy, but now I likely have a bit more free time, at least for a few weeks. If anyone wants to generally discuss the Gospels, this would also be the place.)

    • Two McMillion says:

      How do scholars decide that some letters were probably written by Paul versus probably not? The obvious choice is to compare the letters to some other document which we know was written by Paul, but as far as I’m aware we don’t have such a thing.

      • dndnrsn says:

        Internal context, comparison of language used, and textual history, mostly. I’ll go into detail on each letter. 1st Thessalonians ought to give a good coverage of how scholars tend to approach this.

    • S_J says:

      As an aside: when I was a child, I noticed that some translations of the Bible gave titles like “The First letter of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonian Church” above the first page of the letter…which helped me figure out why “1 Thessalonians” was typically read out loud as “First Thessalonians”. Similar comments apply to most other sections of the Bible with number-prefixes.

      Somewhere along the way, when reading through the Bible as young teen, I noticed that some of these letters have multiple names at the beginning. Like the First letter to the Thessalonian church, which opens with Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians…

      Is this related to scholarly commentary about the order the letters were written in? Did the early letters tend to have this kind of group-authorship, or does this help link the letter with a particular time-frame in the travels of Paul the Apostle?

    • Error says:

      Is there an index or blog of these somewhere? I know someone who would be interested.

      • dndnrsn says:

        I did a summing-up post when I finished up the Hebrew Bible here and I’m gonna do one when I’m done the New Testament.

  28. drunkfish says:

    I totally disagree with the suggestion that this situation debunks thrive/survive. The idea that we can shut down our entire economy to save some lives would be absolutely ridiculous if we weren’t an incredibly rich society and confident in our economy’s robustness. Shutting down the economy *requires* a thrive mindset, because it requires believing we’re able to take a huge economic hit without the shutdowns being net-negative.

    My mental model of thrive/survive isn’t that the left always thinks things are peachy and the right always thinks things are terrible. It’s that the left thinks we have a lot of flexibility in how we run society, so we can make high-cost decisions if they have benefits, and the right thinks society is only barely propped up, so any high cost decisions are likely to make things fall apart. I think that model actually does quite a good job of predicting current dynamics.

    • FLWAB says:

      I agree 100%! Thrivers think that we can afford to stay in lockdown as long as we need to. Survivors think that we can’t afford to keep this up much longer. Thrivers think making stuff is easy, and wealth just comes naturally (thus the only concern is the proper distribution). Survivors think that making stuff is hard, and are afraid that the longer people are out of work the worse that damage is going to be.

      The Thriver thinks that our societal bank account is flush with cash, so we can afford to stop working for six months. The Survivor thinks that our societal bank account is always at risk of being overdrawn, and is terrified that we won’t have rent money if this keeps up.

      • Aapje says:

        I’m completely amazed at how many letters and columns there are in my center-left newspaper that see this pandemic as a chance to spend way more money on various things (salaries of low-productive employees, pensions, environmentalism, etc) or set up regulations/laws that harm the economy.

        These people don’t seem to understand that we are going to be poorer due to this, rather than richer.

        • Garrett says:

          People of other political viewpoints read the same publications and start to conclude that the left is more interested in the opportunities for control it provides rather than actually addressing the pandemic.

          • albatross11 says:

            There is a vast genre of ideologues basically taking every crisis and urgent issue, including COVID-19, and explaining why this latest crisis just proves that all the stuff they wanted to do before is urgent and must be done right away.

          • Matt M says:

            This article may be relevant.

            When a lot of people start acting like we shouldn’t even try to restore society back to how it was before all of this started, my “they are using this for political gain” senses start going crazy.

            This is not unrelated to my “I’m skeptical of climate change because all of the proposed solutions are things the left has always wanted all along anyway” argument I’ve made here countless times.

          • This is not unrelated to my “I’m skeptical of climate change because all of the proposed solutions are things the left has always wanted all along anyway” argument I’ve made here countless times.

            What struck me about this long ago was that it doesn’t seem to occur to people arguing the risks of climate change that if they explicitly say “and by the way, all these things that you have to do in order to prevent a climate catastrophe just happen to be things we think you should be doing anyway,” that might make others less willing to take their arguments seriously.

    • Loriot says:

      This strikes me as post-hoc reasoning. If you asked someone back in December what the “Survive vs Thrive” theory would predict about a massive pandemic, basically everyone would have said it would predict that conservatives would be on the pro-containment side. If you know the answers, you can find them in the tea leaves, but that doesn’t mean the tea leaves were actually predictive.

      • Clutzy says:

        I think thats only true if you use the vague term containment. When you go a little more accurate with your description it flips. Who thinks, “state mandated closure of school, small business, and church” patterns onto right wing? 2/3 of that is basically what a right winger parodies the left as.

      • John Schilling says:

        If you asked someone back in December what the “pro-containment side” was actually pro-ing, nobody would have envisioned quarantining every healthy but economically “nonessential” American in their homes for months at a time.

        What we have now is to normal “pro-contaiment” pandemic politics what mass orgies of unprotected sex would be to “pro-life” abortion politics. I, for one, would not be the least bit surprised if conservatives and liberals flip-flopped on the whole “pro-life” thing if it were suddenly redefined as mass orgies of unprotected sex, notwithstanding that the mass orgies would create more life.

      • drunkfish says:

        Yeah I broadly agree with the other replies to you, I think you’re right that in December, if you asked “do you think thrivers or survivors are more likely to fight to contain a pandemic”, you’d probably get the answer “survivors, basically by definition.”

        If you changed it to, “do you think thrivers or survivers would accept a possibly unprecedented economic downturn in order to save about 1% of the population, most of them old people”, you’d get the opposite answer. In December people just didn’t have a good sense of 1) how serious coronavirus would be and 2) what containment really meant.

        • Loriot says:

          IMO, the judgement about the relative costs and benefits of various lockdown strategies is largely politics-driven rationalization, so I think this is a circular argument.

          • drunkfish says:

            That’s fair in detail I guess, and maybe I have partisan blinders on and this isn’t true, but it seems like there isn’t a ton of room for disagreement on: The scale of the economic downturn we’re causing and the (rough) number of deaths we’d face if we didn’t shut down. My impression is the main disagreement is just about whether the shutdowns are worth it or not, and that seems to map pretty well to thrive/survive if you figure survivors think our economy is delicate and thrivers think it’s robust.

  29. edmundgennings says:

    To give another defense of the thrive vs survive theory in this context.
    Having roughly .6% of the under 60 population die in a year of infectious disease and low life expectancy for the elderly are not good things. But they are not an existential threat. We know this because the West had that happen ever single year in the late nineteenth century which due to urbanization and globalization probably represented the high water mark of death by infectious diseases but was much closer to the historical norm than we are. Not only did this not cripple these societies, they were able to make unprecedented progress while having these problems. Having one year where we resemble our own societies in the late nineteenth century is not a threat to survival. In some sense, having a high life expectancy is a luxury not a necessity. (Obviously it is a very nice thing to have)

    On the other hand, world wide lockdowns of this sort seem literally unprecedented. There have been plenty of quarantines etc but shutting down society is not something that we know that we can do. This is clearly a dangerous and extreme treatment that will be necessary for a lengthy and unknown amount of time in order to get the benefit of it.
    Herd immunity is the tried and true if unpleasant survive approach; lockdowns are the untested dangerous but with the possibility of a much better outcome thrive approach.

    • albatross11 says:

      I think there were comparable shutdowns in many cities in response to the 1918 flu.

      • Statismagician says:

        Correct – see e.g. here for an okayish treatment of the sort of natural experiment it was much easier to get in those halcyon days of relatively decentralized policymaking; St. Louis and Philadelphia handled the 1918 flu very differently.

      • edmundgennings says:

        St Louis seems like the most extreme and from what I can find it “merely” closed stores and public assembly places for two months. High school tennis games continued with out fans in the stands. Is there anywhere in the US where highschool sports are still competing in person? From what I can find, the most extreme response to 1918 might be roughly equivalent to the most mild response to covid.

        • Statismagician says:

          It was a more risk-tolerant age, but I’d be surprised to learn that there was a real chance of catching just about anything from playing tennis outside of highly contrived scenarios.

          It’s important to separate the actually-prevents-infection parts of coronavirus response from the signals-preventing-infection parts; I think St. Louis’ response to the 1918 flu is probably similar in usefulness to the most extreme coronavirus lockdowns, just without the latter bits.

          • Matt M says:

            but I’d be surprised to learn that there was a real chance of catching just about anything from playing tennis outside of highly contrived scenarios.

            and yet, Tennis playing, at virtually every possible level, is currently banned in most places

          • salvorhardin says:

            Indeed. One of the things I like about the Swedish approach is that they appear to have applied cost-benefit calculations based on reasonable guesstimates of how likely different kinds of activities are to be transmission vectors, along with their social benefit. So for instance, the risk of allowing outdoor sports seems relatively low from what we know so far, and it keeps people fit and sane which is enough benefit to justify the low (even though nonzero and highly uncertain) risk. Similarly, daycares/preschools/elementary schools have at most moderate guesstimate-risk of being major transmission vectors (some plausible reasons to think they might be, some other plausible reasons to think they might not) and there’s enormous benefit to society from keeping them open, so they stay open.

          • EchoChaos says:

            If you had predicted in 2019 that all the conservatives would be yelling for the USA to be more like Sweden and all the liberals for us to be more like Singapore, you’d have been institutionalized.

          • Statismagician says:

            @Matt M

            Yes, Minister is always relevant: “Almost all government policy is wrong, but frightfully well-carried out.”

          • noyann says:

            When you think of tennis, do you imagine two lone figures on a large court? Do you not think of the handshake after the match (with two people still breathing hard and likely talking)? Showers and locker rooms? The socializing before/after the matches?

          • albatross11 says:

            Matt M:

            I live in suburban Maryland, in an extremely blue-tribe area. The tennis court close to my house sees a fair bit of use, including by me and my kids. I have not seen any indication yet that anyone wants us to stop. I think this is very much driven by local authorities. And the truth is that the quality of local authorities’ decisionmaking is extremely uneven across the country. I wonder how many places there were where churches did drive-in Easter services and the police chief/mayor thought “nice way to solve the problem.” We will probably never hear of any such places–that’s not the kind of news that gets clicks.

          • Statismagician says:

            @noyann

            I think all of that continuing on unchanged from normal, in a situation where we’re playing tennis in an empty stadium because all the spectators are quarantined, is a highly contrived scenario.

          • Matt M says:

            Yeah, excuse me for not believing that the reason we need to ban people from playing Tennis, from the world’s top players all the way down to your local YMCA, is that people might shake hands when the match is over…

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I wonder how many places there were where churches did drive-in Easter services and the police chief/mayor thought “nice way to solve the problem.”

            How many places were there where drive-in services caused the local mayor to say “Egads, a non-socially distanced gathering!”?

          • Theodoric says:

            @HeelBearCub
            The mayor of Louisville, KY for one.

          • Eltargrim says:

            @HBC

            It caused a stir in Nova Scotia.

          • albatross11 says:

            Yeah, when you combine:

            a. High variance in local government competence.

            b. Media who live on the most outrageous story of the day.

            c. Lots and lots of different local governments.

            you can reliably get stories of basically whatever kind of government ineptitude or corruption or overreaction or awfulness your editor wants to get clicks. This is a hugely distorting filter on what the world actually looks like.

        • craftman says:

          http://chm.med.umich.edu/research/1918-influenza-escape-communities/gunnison/

          It’s a small, mountian town but Gunnison, CO was basically completed closed-off and enforced a 2-day quarantine of anyone arriving by rail. They had zero cases during the second wave of influenza.

          Wouldn’t it be great if a 2-day quarantine were sufficient? We’d be over this by now for sure.

    • HeelBearCub says:

      Remember “thrive vs. survive” is supposed to explain enmity against gay people as well. Lots of commentary was generated about how gay sex was inherently riskier, etc. Not really buying this retconning of the meaning of “thrive vs. survive”.

      • eyeballfrog says:

        I thought the explanation for that was that survival requires children, which gay sex doesn’t produce.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          A) That was by no means the only argument against.
          B) Most objections wouldn’t extend to, “You must father children or society will shun you”. See, you know, priests. Many conservatives would in fact say it’s fine to be gay, just not act on it.

          • Skeptic says:

            How did AIDS factor into that?

            Not old enough to remember.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            How did AIDS factor into early 20th century conservative attitudes about gay people? Not at all.

            Plus AIDS is far less of a risk than a pandemic.

            Again, thrive/survive is supposed to be explanatory in advance, not “just so”.

    • keaswaran says:

      This goes both ways. Economic shutdowns producing a 50% drop in economic output leave us at an economic level comparable to the mid-20th century (in the slowly growing developed world) or comparable to the turn of the 21st century (in the quickly growing developing world). Whereas a global pandemic that spreads through the world population in just a few months is literally unprecedented in human history.

      The way I’ve been thinking about it is that with growing economic prosperity around the world, we’ve passed some point where the cost of losing a percentage of the population is high enough that taking an economic hit for everyone to prevent this loss of life is now worth it, particularly with new technological opportunities for mitigating some of the costs of these measures. It’s somewhat like when urban areas in California and Japan passed the point where the best preparation for earthquakes is to build low and reached the point where the best preparation for earthquakes is to build tall but seismically stable.

      • Randy M says:

        the cost of losing a percentage of the population is high enough

        Not to be cold, but it very much depends on which percentage. Do those likely to be lost have a positive economic value? Sure, there are the elder employees with incomparable experience, but what is the ratio of them to the retirees on public assistance?

        • Matt M says:

          Indeed. At the risk of sounding overly cruel, a disease that mostly kills people who are old and/or have pre-existing health issues could quite easily be an economic benefit to the nation (even if it remains a psychic or emotional harm).

          Yes, I love my 90-year-old grandfather who is currently battling cancer for a second time. But as much as I love him, it’s a bit of a stretch for me to somehow argue that society as a whole is better off in any way if he lives for another five years…

        • Nancy Lebovitz says:

          Are there any numbers for the economic costs to social networks from losing people?

        • keaswaran says:

          You seem to be assuming that “economic value” has something to do with “work compensated on the market”. I take “economic value” to be “whatever it is that people reveal a willingness to pay for”. It’s clear that continued life has a great deal of economic value for most people (the actively suicidal are one of the few counterexamples). Probably life in great sickness at the end of life is of quite a bit lower economic value than life in health among the young. But nearly all people dying have lives of positive economic value (including all those retirees on public assistance – their positive economic value is *why* they are on public assistance in the first place). And there definitely are a number of younger and healthier people in this list as well (and would be a lot more if a lot more people were getting infected simultaneously).

          And of course, to properly calculate the full cost of allowing the disease to run its course, we have to count not just the deaths, but the weeks of suffering experienced even by “mild” cases. (The value of these losses is much less than the value of years of life lost, but the vast number of people that will experience these symptoms might mean that it’s important to include in the calculations as well.)

          • I take “economic value” to be “whatever it is that people reveal a willingness to pay for”.

            But nearly all people dying have lives of positive economic value (including all those retirees on public assistance – their positive economic value is *why* they are on public assistance in the first place).

            I agree with the first half of this. But the fact that A is willing to make B pay $X for something is not evidence that that something is worth $X to either A or B. So I don’t think you can take government expenditure on something as a measure of its value, which I think you are doing.

            Suppose the value to me of keeping myself alive is $800/month and the cost to other people of keeping me alive is $1000/month. Further suppose that the particular political system we are under weights my desires substantially more heavily than those of the average taxpayer, for public choice sorts of reasons — for a simple example, suppose people like me are much more likely to vote than average — with the result that the government is willing to pay the $1000/month required to keep me alive. My economic value is negative, but your argument implies it is positive.

      • edmundgennings says:

        In terms of measured GDP, yes we are still higher. In terms of actual wellbeing and underlying fundamentals, we are worse off. We as consumers are experiencing huge drops in selection, quality, and availability.
        Further the non economic impacts are the big question. I am a relative technophile, but electronic interaction does not fully replace in person interaction for most people. And we are sending most people into a very nice form of quasi solitary -small group confinement with the internet for an indefinite period.

      • The Nybbler says:

        Whereas a global pandemic that spreads through the world population in just a few months is literally unprecedented in human history.

        It most certainly is not. Swine flu (2009), Hong Kong flu (1968), Asian flu (1957-1958), and of course Spanish Flu (1918 — there were several waves over 2 years, but the first wave spread in that short period). All but swine flu appear likely to be more deadly than COVID-19

      • baconbits9 says:

        Economic shutdowns producing a 50% drop in economic output leave us at an economic level comparable to the mid-20th century (in the slowly growing developed world) or comparable to the turn of the 21st century (in the quickly growing developing world). Whereas a global pandemic that spreads through the world population in just a few months is literally unprecedented in human history.

        This is a compositional fallacy. You don’t get to go back and live your 2001 lifestyle with a 50% drop in GDP, unless you assume you are a survivor. Europe recovered from the 1929-1945 period reasonably well unless you count the zero GDP growth experienced by everyone who died during the war.

        • keaswaran says:

          Yes. My point was that the same is true on the other side. Adding COVID-19 to the current population doesn’t produce the same thing as the general level of health people experienced 50 years ago, even if the aggregate numbers are the same, any more than putting shelter-in-place orders produce anything like the general level of economics people experienced 50 years ago, even if the aggregate numbers are the same.

      • Whereas a global pandemic that spreads through the world population in just a few months is literally unprecedented in human history.

        As someone else already pointed out, the death rates to be expected from such a pandemic represent roughly the normal pattern for the developed world in the 19th century. Most other times and places were worse.

        • keaswaran says:

          My point is that just looking at the death numbers is no more helpful than just looking at the economic numbers. If you’re going to just go by the numbers, the economic numbers to be expected from a year of the shelter-in-place orders represent roughly the normal pattern for the developed world in the 20th century. Most other times and places were worse.

          We need to understand the full impacts in better detail to evaluate these things in any way that doesn’t just show us that the economic impacts of the shutdown are far less than the mortality impacts of the unchecked disease.

    • On the other hand, world wide lockdowns of this sort seem literally unprecedented. There have been plenty of quarantines etc but shutting down society is not something that we know that we can do.

      In the same way we aren’t sure whether it’ll work to paint all the buildings blue: it’s never been done before. I see no reason to expect any black swans here. We know people can go without their iPhones, their vacations to Florida, and their double-decker obesity sandwiches. As to the social isolation, people still have phones, they still have video-chat. I doubt there will be any widespread pickle-ree-ing over it.

      • John Schilling says:

        I think you are very, very wrong about the extent to which phones and video-chat can substitute for FTF human contact in maintaining the mental health of a diverse human population.

        • keaswaran says:

          It absolutely can’t substitute for the long run. But it provides something for the short run that is far better than what we would have had if we had attempted this even in 2003 for SARS.

      • Matt M says:

        We know people can go without their iPhones, their vacations to Florida, and their double-decker obesity sandwiches.

        The first and third aren’t among the things people are having to go without.

        What we’re actually depriving people of is the practice of their religion, their means of obtaining an income, close friend and family bonding, basic nutritional staples at grocery stores, and seemingly over half of what doctors and hospitals normally do.

        But you can still order a new Iphone. And you can still get the new FF7 remake. And you can still stream Tiger King. And you can still get a triple whopper with cheese.

        The notion that this current environment is only causing people to give up luxuries so they can still obtain the necessities is absurd. In many cases, the opposite is happening. We’re told that it’s fine to require us to sacrifice basic human needs because after all, we still have our luxuries!

        • Randy M says:

          What we’re actually depriving people of is the practice of their religion, their means of obtaining an income, close friend and family bonding, basic nutritional staples at grocery stores, and seemingly over half of what doctors and hospitals normally do.

          But you can still order a new Iphone. And you can still get the new FF7 remake. And you can still stream Tiger King. And you can still get a triple whopper with cheese.

          In other, glib and technically incorrect words, the lockdowns move us in the direction of, what’s the phrase?, luxury space communism?

        • At least in my area the meat shortages are over, not sure about tp. Once you’re through the period of adjustment, making society poorer will lead people to give up luxuries and keep buying necessities. The unemployed and small business owners aren’t going to be buying IPhones right now.

          seemingly over half of what doctors and hospitals normally do.

          By global standards a lot of that can be counted as luxury consumption. Other countries go without it. See https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine-half

          • Matt M says:

            By global standards a lot of that can be counted as luxury consumption.

            Indeed. This has been a real eye-opener IMO.

            This little experiment should end up producing a whole lot of great material for libertarians who want to argue for a more free market approach to health care.

            Also has the potential to backfire on the people who are trying to attribute every single death to COVID. If we live through a period of time where normal “health care” consumption declines by a significant percentage, and health outcomes (ex COVID) stay basically the same, what does that say about everything we were spending all those health care resources on?

          • The Nybbler says:

            This is also why I’m skeptical of the “millions more die if hospitals overloaded” thing. I think in normal times we admit a lot of people to the hospital who would most likely do fine without; being about to admit 100 people when only 5-10 (who we don’t know in advance) actually need hospital care is a luxury.

          • Nancy Lebovitz says:

            It’s going to be complicated: People with treatable conditions like appendicitis are avoiding hospitals for fear of the virus, and becoming much sicker.

            There will be a number of categories. There are people who will get better on their own, people who will die or take a lot of damage if they don’t get medical care, and people are are worse off as a result of going to a hospital. I think I’m missing a category.

            The effects won’t be simple to sort out.

          • Christophe Biocca says:

            Once you’re through the period of adjustment, making society poorer will lead people to give up luxuries and keep buying necessities. The unemployed and small business owners aren’t going to be buying IPhones right now.

            You’re thinking with a lump GDP model:

            – The lockdowns cut back on economic activity.
            – This decreased GDP by X%.
            – Therefore consumption will fall by Y% (depending on how much we also cut back on investment), which will come out of the lowest net marginal benefit goods (aka. luxuries).

            But that’s confusing the symptom with the cause. The government did not mandate a X% drop in GDP and let people figure out the least-harmful way to achieve that. It imposed production quotas of 0 on a variety of activities (some of which show up in GDP, some of which don’t), based on how much they contribute to infection spread. People do not necessarily get to substitute luxuries for necessities if the necessities are flat-out illegal or impossible to get.

            To take an extreme example, if the government response to COVID had been to ban growing/importing food and nothing else, that’s only a ~5% drop in GDP, followed by mass starvation as people’s fridges, cans, and wallpaper paste run out.

            The lockdown policies currently in place are obviously not that destructive, but every shuttered industry is a bet that we can make do with stockpiled production or do without entirely until it can be restarted.

        • Nancy Lebovitz says:

          The other thing which concerns me is, beyond the good things that people aren’t getting, there are huge losses because potential good things aren’t able to happen. There are relationships, inventions, and businesses which are prevented because of lack of travel, personal contact, capital, and probably other resources.

          One thing that concerns me about the current situation is that normally people do a lot to help each other in hard times, but now, while some help is feasible, a lot is more difficult or impossible..

          • keaswaran says:

            I think it will cause a lot more re-evaluation of various practices when economic activity resumes. People are constantly saying we can skip traffic and escape the cities, thanks to the internet, but now we’ll see just which things do work that way, and which things really don’t. Some in-person activities will be cut back long term, while others will rebound and be higher than ever.

          • Matt M says:

            My impression is that the work from home equilibrium will largely stay the same on net, only the arguments will have switched.

            It used to be “I’d love to work from home but my employer won’t let me.” But nearly all of my colleagues (even the ones with large commutes) keep saying “I can’t wait to get back to the office” while management says “I can’t believe this is working so well!”

            Maybe after COVID, employers will pressure people to WFH to save money on office space costs, but employees will demand office space as a perk of the job?

          • acymetric says:

            Maybe after COVID, employers will pressure people to WFH to save money on office space costs, but employees will demand office space as a perk of the job?

            I would damn near be willing to take a (small) pay cut if it meant I could work from home permanently.

          • Randy M says:

            I would damn near be willing to take a (small) pay cut if it meant I could work from home permanently.

            This reads as “I value working from home at $0.”

          • baconbits9 says:

            I think the long term issues will be more significant than short term. My wife is having WFH function well, especially with her longest tenured employees. She knows them and their skill sets well, but I don’t think (and neither does she) that it would translate to new hires at all. In an office setting it is much easier to identify why an employee isn’t doing great, are they not putting in the hours, or are they easily distracted or are they not being trained properly. She feels like it takes 3-6 months to get a good read on if they are going to make it or not, that would probably double at least in a permanent WFH environment.

          • acymetric says:

            This reads as “I value working from home at $0.”

            Maybe we have different definitions of the word “small”? I wouldn’t give up 25% of my salary for it, but I would give up a single-digit (i.e. “small”) percentage*. Did you mis-read the comment?

            *Really what I would prefer to give up in exchange for WFH is some vacation time rather than pay (not at a 1:1 ratio, obviously if I wanted that I would just use the vacation time).

          • baconbits9 says:

            @ acymetric-

            What is your commute like?

          • acymetric says:

            @baconbits9

            In addition to making it harder to evaluate new employees, it probably makes it hard for newer/younger/less experienced employees to fully catch on. I definitely would have struggled at my current job (with 0 experience in the field at the time) if I was working from home starting day 1.

          • acymetric says:

            @baconbits9

            Commented before I saw your question. Normally 20-30 minutes, although I moved further away temporarily and it bumped up to about an hour and a half each way (I’ll move back around November, assuming coronavirus related stuff doesn’t prevent that move).

          • Randy M says:

            Did you mis-read the comment?

            No, you stated emphatically that you were “near” willing to give up a “small” amount of pay.
            I guess that doesn’t preclude being actually willing to give up a “tiny” amount, but it doesn’t really signal a strong economic preference.

            edit: I’m sorry, this line of inquiry is needlessly pedantic and nit-picky when really your were just trying to provide counter evidence to Matt’s impression of employee attitudes.

          • baconbits9 says:

            So what % of your salary is worth 40 – 60 mins a day + commuting costs?

          • acymetric says:

            Like I said, some single-digit percentage. Probably not more than 2-3%.

            Commuting costs for me are basically 0 even for the longer commute, so the time saved is more significant there.

            That said, the main reason I like working from home though isn’t the commute time, but just that I enjoy being home during the day even if I’m still working just as much (or, realistically, a little bit more) as I would if I were in the office.

          • johan_larson says:

            How much has productivity dropped at companies that switched white-collar work from in the office to work from home? This sort of work is famously hard to measure, but there are typically productivity-adjacent metrics. For computer programmers, it’s not that hard to measure the number of code check-ins or the number of lines of code checked in.

            Offhand, I expect such statistics are down. People get less done at home than in the office. Pressed for a number, I would guess 15%. Anyone have real data?

          • Matt M says:

            How much has productivity dropped at companies that switched white-collar work from in the office to work from home?

            According to my employer and my fiance’s employer, productivity is flat to up.

            Of course they could just be saying that, because it’s good for morale.

          • Clutzy says:

            Ours is slightly down due to server load and remote desktops causing enough lag that it effects speed.

          • @Matt M

            But nearly all of my colleagues (even the ones with large commutes) keep saying “I can’t wait to get back to the office”

            How much of this is due to the kids being at home too? That’s the main complaint I hear.

        • BlackboardBinaryBook says:

          On the flip side, there may be more human flourishing along lines of strengthened familial relationships and time spent creating/homesteading. My neighborhood positively resounds with the laughter of children and whirring of power tools. The hardware stores are packed. And I’m reasonably certain most of my roommates have never eaten this well.

          I know this is likely wishful thinking combined with my own bubble, but I’m trying to focus on the silver linings.

          • acymetric says:

            I know this is likely wishful thinking combined with my own bubble, but I’m trying to focus on the silver linings.

            I’m in the same boat as you (lost 14 pounds so far, running 15 miles per week and walking another 50 or so, same whirring of power tools and loads of mulch being spread every where, etc).

            On the other hand, if I were still living in my 1 bedroom apartment instead of with my parents in their suburban home my experience would likely be quite different. Some people are definitely benefiting (at least in some ways) from the current arrangement, but others have it quite a bit worse.

  30. Two McMillion says:

    So last night I watched the 2020 version of The Invisible Man. It’s a good film, albiet one that likes its social justice. There is one thing that bothered me about the ending, though (rot13):

    Gur raqvat urnivyl vzcyvrf gung Prpvyvn xvyyrq Nqevna juvyr jrnevat gur vaivfvoyr fhvg, zbivat uvf nez gb znxr vg ybbx yvxr ur fynfurq uvf bja guebng. Gur ceboyrz jvgu guvf vf gung vg’f pbzcyrgryl vzcbffvoyr. Erzrzore gung ng gur ortvaavat bs gur svyz, Nqevna fznfurf n pne jvaqbj jvgu uvf svfg. Guvf vf ab fznyy srng. Pne jvaqbjf ner zhpu fgebatre gura beqvanel jvaqbjf. Gur boivbhf pbapyhfvba vf gung Nqevna vf irel, irel fgebat. Naq jr’er fhccbfrq gb oryvrir gung n jbzna jub ur fhccbfrqyl culfvpnyyl nohfrq jnf noyr gb znavchyngr uvf nez ntnvafg uvf jvyy gb znxr uvz fyvg uvf bja guebng? Abguvat va gur svyz vaqvpngrf gung Prpvyvn vf cnegvphyneyl nguyrgvp. Shegure, vs, nf Prpvyvn pynvzf, Nqevna jnf pbagebyyvat ure jvgu gur vaivfvoyr fhvg, Nqevna bhtug gb unir orra njner gung gur vaivfvoyr fhvg jnf zvffvat, naq, shegure, gung Prpvyvn yvxryl unq bar. Vg’f abg yvxr ur unq uhaqerqf; ur pregnvayl jbhyq unir abgvprq vs bar jnf zvffvat. Va gung pnfr ur jbhyq unir pregnvayl sbhtug onpx ntnvafg uvf vaivfvoyr nggnpxre- naq tvira ubj fgebat ur nccneragyl vf, ur jbhyq unir unq n tbbq punapr bs jvaavat.

    Gur snpg gung Prpvyvn pbhyq abg unir orra gur bar gung xvyyrq Nqevna sbeprf hf gb vagrecerg gur erfg bs gur zbivr va n pbzcyrgryl qvssrerag yvtug. Vs Prpvyvn qvqa’g xvyy Nqevna, gura jub qvq? Vg zhfg or fbzrbar jrnevat gur vaivfvoyr fhvg. Gbz vf gur boivbhf pnaqvqngr, ohg Gbz vf va cevfba.

    N frpbaq nethzrag ntnvafg Nqevna’f thvyg vf gur snpg gung, vs Nqevna jnf gur vaivfvoyr zna, uvf orunivbe nsgre Prpvyvn gbbx gur vaivfvoyr fhvg sebz uvf ubhfr znxrf ab frafr. Vs Prpvyvn vf pbeerpg, Nqevna’f cyna jbhyq pbzcyrgryl haeniry vs gur rkvfgrapr bs gur vaivfvoyr fhvg jnf erirnyrq gb gur choyvp. Ur zhfg xabj gung gur fhvg jnf zvffvat. Jul jnfa’g erpbirevat vg uvf gbc cevbevgl? Lrg gur vaivfvoyr zna va gur frpbaq unys bs gur svyz npgf nf vs ur unf ab xabjyrqtr gung Prpvyvn unf na vaivfvoyr fhvg. Jul? Gur fvzcyrfg rkcynangvba vf gung gur vaivfvoyr zna npghnyyl vf hanjner gung fur unf bar.

    Frireny fprarf fhttrfg gung gurer vf zber guna bar crefba jvgu na vaivfvoyr fhvg. Va cnegvphyne, gur fprarf jurer Prpvyvn syrrf na vaivfvoyr zna ng gur ubfcvgny (orsber tbvat gb Wnzrf’ ubhfr) naq gur bar jurer fur syrrf Wnzrf’ ubhfr gb tb gb Nqevna’f. Va obgu bs gurfr fprarf, Prpvyvn ehaf sebz na vaivfvoyr zna, trgf va n pne, naq qevirf qverpgyl gb nabgure cynpr. Lrg va obgu pnfrf gur vaivfvoyr zna, jub yrsg sebz gur fnzr cynpr, trgf gurer orsber ure. Ubj vf guvf cbffvoyr? Gur boivbhf fbyhgvba vf gung gurer ner gjb vaivfvoyr zra. Gbz vf bar. Jub vf gur bgure?

    Erpnyy gung qhevat gur rcvybthr Wnzrf gryyf Prpvyvn gung Gbz jnf sbhaq jrnevat “Fbzrguvat” naq gung jvgarffrf ng gur ubfcvgny fnj “Fbzrguvat”. Guvf vf rkgerzryl vzcbegnag. Vg zrnaf gung gur cbyvpr qb abg xabj jung gur vaivfvoyr fhvg qbrf be jung vg vf sbe- nyy gurl xabj vf gung fbzrbar jnf jrnevat vg ng gur fprar bs n pevzr. Cerfhznoyl gur qnzntr gb gur fhvg pnhfrq jura Prpvyvn fubg Gbz ng Wnzrf’ ubhfr zrnaf vg ab ybatre shapgvbaf, naq Gbz unf abg rkcynvarq gur fhvg (be creuncf ur vf qrnq- gur zbivr vf hapyrne). Ubj vf guvf cbffvoyr? Jul unira’g gur cbyvpr svtherq bhg jung gur fhvg qbrf? Vg frrzf fbzrbar be fbzrguvat unf ceriragrq gurz sebz pbzcyrgvat gur vairfgvtngvba. Gurer ner frireny cbffvovyvgvrf, ohg gur HF Srqreny Tbireazrag frrzf yvxr gur orfg pnaqvqngr. Nqevna’f erfrnepu vagb vaivfvovyvgl frrzf yvxr gur fbeg bs guvat gurl jbhyq or vaibyirq va. Onfrq ba guvf, vg vf uvtuyl yvxryl gung gur bgure vaivfvoyr zna vf na ryvgr HF Tbireazrag bcrengvir. Abgr gung gur vaivfvoyr zna va Prpvyvn’f xvgpura jnf pncnoyr bs cvpxvat ure hc ol gur arpx- n srng gung jbhyq unir erdhverq terng hccre obql fgeratgu. Fhpu n crefba jbhyq pbaprvinoyl unir orra noyr gb sbepr Nqevna gb fyvg uvf bja guebng va gur svany fprar. Na vaivfvoyr zna jnf nyfb noyr gb svtug naq fhoqhr arneyl n qbmra frphevgl thneqf ng gur ubfcvgny- tenagrq, jvgu gur nqinagntr bs vaivfvovyvgl, ohg fgvyy ab rnfl srng, naq gurer vf ab ernfba jul Gbz (jub vf n ynjlre, erzrzore) jbhyq unir orra noyr gb chyy vg bss. Guhf, Nqevna jnf nyzbfg pregnvayl abg xvyyrq ol Prpvyvn, ohg jnf gur gnetrg bs na ryvgr cebsrffvbany nffnffvangvba, yvxryl ol n HF tbireazrag bcrengvir.

    Guvf zrnaf gung Nqevna’f fgbel nobhg orvat gvrq hc ol uvf oebgure Gbz vf cebonoyl gehr, naq uvf pynvz gb or n ivpgvz vf yvxrjvfr gehr nf jryy. Jr xabj sebz Gbz’f fgngrzragf gung ur bsgra sryg birefunqbjrq ol Nqevna, naq guvf frrzf gb unir orra gur bccbeghavgl ur gbbx gb gel naq gevhzcu bire uvf oebgure. Gur HF tbireazrag tbg vaibyirq orpnhfr, bs pbhefr, lbh’er tbvat gb ybbx vagb vg jura bar bs lbhe erfrnepuref jbexvat ba n tebhaqoernxvat cebwrpg fhqqrayl pbzzvgf fhvpvqr. Zbfg yvxryl gur tbireazrag qvq abg xabj rknpgyl ubj znal fhvgf Nqevna unq pbzcyrgrq, juvpu vf jul Prpvyvn’f gursg bs bar jrag haabgvprq (vg jnf, nsgre nyy, vaivfvoyr jura fur sbhaq vg, naq gur tbireazrag zvtug abg xabj gur pbqr gb bcra Nqevna’f fnsr).

    Ohg vs Nqevna vf n ivpgvz, gura gur zbivr vf ab ybatre nobhg na nohfrq jbzna fgehttyvat gb trg gur jbeyq gb oryvrir ure. Vg’f vafgrnq n zbivr nobhg n jbzna jub guvaxf gur jbeyq eribyirf nebhaq ure ceboyrzf jura gurer ner zhpu ynetre sbeprf va cynl, naq jub vf fb jenccrq hc va ure bja vagrecergngvba bs riragf gung fur ershfrf gb oryvrir nal bgure vagrecergngvba. Vs guvf vf n zbivr sbe gur #ZrGbb ren, vg’f cebonoyl abg dhvgr gur fbeg bs zbivr Havirefny vagraqrq gb znxr.

    Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

    • bullseye says:

      I haven’t seen the movie myself, but the guys at Red Letter Media got the impression that gur fhvg tenagf fhcre-fgeratgu nf jryy nf vaivfvovyvgl.

      • Two McMillion says:

        Possible, but vs gur fhvg qbrf tvir fhcre-fgeratgu, Gbz qbrfa’g frrz gb or znxvat zhpu hfr bs vg va gur svany pbasebagngvba jvgu uvz ng Wnzrf’ ubhfr.

    • Ninety-Three says:

      This is not a complaint about the movie on its own merits, but it bothers me that the original Invisible Man story was about something specific (turning invisible makes a man become increasingly isolated from society, leading to him mistreating his fellow man), and they turned that into a movie about an entirely different specific thing (domestic abuse and incidentally there’s an invisible suit). It’d be like making a Batman movie where instead of punching criminals, he’s a lawyer: I’m sure you can make a fine movie about a Gotham lawyer, but it doesn’t seem like Batman. Typically the answer to the “why did they do it?” question is brand recognition, but are they really gaining that much from referencing a story most people haven’t read from the 19th century?

      • baconbits9 says:

        Related: If you wanted to make a movie with different/more liberal sensibilities why not adapt the other Invisible Man?

      • Two McMillion says:

        I can’t say I disagree. I personally thought that the movie would have been more effective (or at least more surprising) if the working theory for the mysterious events in the first half was, “Adrian has come back from the dead” and we only realized we were in a sci-fi movie when we see the suit later.

      • ltowel says:

        Wasn’t this originally supposed to be part of the shared “Dark Universe” with that bad new Tom Cruise Mummy movie? If you’re trying to build a shared universe and realize it’s a terrible idea midway through pre-production, you might already have a concept built around an invisible man(which you think could be a good movie), so it’s probably hard to talk yourself out of calling it The Invisible Man – I bet it’s got a higher Q-score then whatever other tittle you come up with.

        • FLWAB says:

          No, it’s made by a completely different studio. The Mummy was Universal Studios, The Invisible Man is Blumhouse. Blumhouse is famous for making tons of horror movies on the cheap and counting on one out of every ten to be a hit. So far it works as a strategy: Invisible Man had a budget of around $10 million and has made something over $100 million.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            The Dark Universe seems to have been canceled and this film claims never to have been involved with it, but … Blumhouse is basically part of Universal and he did get IP from them for this movie. If they wanted unity and centralized control, they wouldn’t have involved him, but it’s not clear what they were ever going to do and I don’t think it’s that implausible that he would have done crossovers with them.

  31. Erl137 says:

    I don’t think Yarvin gets credit for correct prediction here. I admit to only skimming his article, but I saw no particular predictions about the likelihood of pandemic, merely intense stumping for existing policy preferences in the context of an exciting new news item. (Feel free to update me with quotes from the article if I missed something.)

    Imagine the current universe of animal welfare advocates. There are farmers, who believe we should raise cows, kill them, and eat them. There are vegetarians, who believe we should raise cows, milk them, and let them die humanely. There are animal rights activists, who believe we should free cows. There are animal-focused EAs, who believe we should replace farm animals with non-sentient food sources. etc.

    Now add the miso-Cowists, who believe that we should kill a bunch of cows and let them rot. Why? They hate cows, man.

    Most of the time the miso-Cowists just look like huge, irrational assholes. But sometimes there’s a case of Mad Cow Disease. Maybe the initial case is unclear, but there are suggestive news reports. Then the miso-Cowists write long screeds saying, “hey, I heard a guy got sick after eating a burger. As per my previous suggestion, we should kill every cow and let it rot in the fields.” Sometimes the government doesn’t respond quickly; then there are more cases of Mad Cow. When the government gets around to responding, its policy playbook includes the miso-Cow plank: it kills a whole lot of cows and lets them rot.

    Does this count as a “successful prediction” of a Mad Cow Outbreak? Should we extend greater credence to prominent miso-Cowists as sage prophets?

    Probably not.

    But it depends! If miso-Cowism is merely an overexcited Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis resistance group, we might change our opinion of them to, “hey, these people are right about the exact one thing they do care about, and we should be more responsive to initial reports that suggest Mad Cow.” If miso-Cowism is motivated by a completely different ontology—e.g., Two Legs Good, Four Legs Bad—then I think we’re justified in chalking this up to a stopped clock being right at 6:47 precisely.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      It’s a _really_ long article, and I got bored myself. But the relevant parts are there – he’s uncanningly spot on with a bunch of things.

      In October 2019, epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins ran an exercise, “Event 201,” which modeled a coronavirus pandemic. It went completely wild in the Third World and killed 65 million people. Every virus is different, of course. The model virus was more lethal than this one—maybe not 10x more lethal. A coronavirus is basically a cold. The “novel coronavirus” is a cold that gets into your lungs and causes pneumonia, which kills old or sick people. It seems to hit children more lightly, which may be good or bad. Any parent knows the sniffly toddler is a biological weapon.

      China, as an autocratic total state, may have the world’s highest state capacity for disease control. The Chinese government was able to contain SARS because SARS patients aren’t infectious until they have a fever. The government covered the country with fever-checking stations—and it won. China’s latest numbers are distinctly subexponential; epic lockdowns are hard to sustain, but must have a huge impact on viral replication; its scientists may not be quite as good at making vaccines as ours, but paperwork will not get in their way; China has a chance. Coronaviruses prefer winter—spring is coming. They mutate fast—this one could decay into a harmless cold which is also a live viral vaccine, immunizing us against its evil cousin. Nature has a chance. God, as Bismarck said, takes care of fools, drunks and the United States. God always has a chance.

      But as another statesman said, the purpose of government is to provide against preventable evils. What if God has had enough? What if nature is a bitch? What if China has no chance? We could be lucky! Let’s hope we get lucky. But—right now (January 30), the world’s top epidemiologists and virologists seem to concur that we will need to be lucky. And in these professional, social and intellectual circles, the penalties for showboating alarmism are dire. If this turns out to be so—and we may not know for sure until it’s too late—the USG could save millions of lives, American and foreign, right now, by suspending 1492 and disconnecting our planet’s two great hemispheres.
      Epidemiologically, at least. The obvious solution to an emerging pandemic killer cold is cutting off flights to China, then all air travel across the Pacific, then across the Atlantic—depending on the virus’s progress, and maintained donec sciam quid agatur.

      Slower quarantine facilities can get trapped people home. Obvious thinking, of course, is sometimes wrong. It cannot be described as scientific thinking—and here is the problem. Indeed the Western public-health community tends to feel that naive isolation measures, popular both among their old European ancestors and their present Chinese competitors, are barbaric, inept and wrong—like treating cancer with bloodletting. They are even well aware that, to the uneducated, they sound like the mayor in Jaws.

      No, our public-health experts have not been corrupted by the travel and hospitality industry. They say what they think because what they think is the latest science. It may not be good and true; it is as good and true as it gets. And they have a stack of papers as tall as you to prove it. This dialectic is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. As in any really fresh dialectic, both sides are obviously right. An unexpected context of decision Western leaders have to listen to the best scientists—that’s how our process works. They don’t have to listen to the West’s best scientists. They could listen to China’s best scientists. But this would introduce its own well-known source of political distortion. Or they could listen to Hong Kong‘s best scientists—who are somewhat outside both Western and Chinese distortion fields. Bureaucratically this still doesn’t really work. Intellectually, let’s try it and see how it goes.

      Ready to spend half an hour watching TV? Do you know that TV trope where the scientists, having run the numbers, come out to tell the world that—the world is doomed? Here is that press conference, IRL—January 27, 2020. Watch the whole thing. The West’s best epidemiologists consider this Hong Kong team peers. They have the most hands-on experience in the area, having dealt with both SARS and bird flu. They are relatively immune to ideological pressure from both the West and China. Their message is not that the coronavirus will become a pandemic—just that they do not know what would keep it from becoming a pandemic. As Dr. Leung puts it:
      There is already self-sustaining transmission in quite a number of Chinese cities. Because we have at least four city clusters around the country that have extensive links with the rest of the world’s airports, then the chance of seeding sufficient numbers in overseas cities such that they would generate their own epidemics, is not trivial.

      Dr. Leung says: if asymptomatic patients do not shed much virus, as in SARS, “we might have a fighting chance.” Considerable evidence of asymptomatic transmission has since appeared. (The experts are still guessing, but the virus seems to have a large “iceberg” of mild but contagious infections.) As for his policy recommendations, Dr. Leung thinks the internal Chinese quarantine is too late. For the rest of the world, his recommendation is simple if not specific. “Substantial, draconian measures limiting population mobility,” says Dr. Leung, Hong Kong’s top guy, both a virologist and a virus-fighter, “should be taken immediately.” Hong Kong has no ocean borders, but has since taken Dr. Leung’s prescription. We like to remember Athens because of Pericles, not Draco. But only one of them died in a plague.

      Our interconnected, globalized world On the same day, January 27, the NYT published an op-ed on the same subject, by a leading American public-health expert. Dr. Markel—a trained pediatrician—has studied both science and history; he can certainly turn a phrase. His timing is so good that he has a book to sell: Quarantine. Quarantines and other isolation policies, we learn, are bad. Don’t miss the part of the op-ed where he tells you that his historical research says quarantines work, but are bad anyway. And Dr. Markel’s policy prescription is the opposite of Dr. Leung’s: “Incremental restrictions, enforced transparently, tend to work far better than draconian measures, particularly at enlisting the public’s cooperation, which is especially important for properly handling outbreaks in our interconnected, globalized world.”

      Dr. Markel is no more a political scientist than a virologist. But he does know the lingo, doesn’t he? This virus mainly seems to kill old people. So this is the kind of thinking standing between the boomers we love, and drowning in their own fluids. To keep up with the Hong Kong consensus, get your plague news not from the Washington Post, but the South China Morning Post. When Dr. Leung turns optimistic, you can chillax. If he dies, stock up on ammo. Anything that sounds like Dr. Markel can be ignored.

  32. Nevertaken says:

    Two of the ingredients of hard to predict from a social standpoint, but easy from a logical standpoint, seems to me to be: one; events that happen on a frequency scale of 60 – 100 years or so – that scale is frequent enough that most people will live through one of them, but infrequent enough that most people will not live through two of them; and two that reaction requires some social risk. When the evidence mounts that one of them is beginning to happen, we should not logically discount it as some remote possibility. But at the same time, because it’s outside of (almost) everyone’s experience, there is a natural tendency to discount the possibility; and because, for a pandemic, the reaction is to say we should all behave like hoarding, socially distanced preppers, there is social pressure to not follow the logic. We had no business discounting the possibility of a pandemic to the extent most of us did. The domain experts had been telling us for years that it’s a ‘when not if’ question. When China shut down Wuhan (a city of 5 million + people) on January 23, and then in the week or so after that when it was apparent that it had not been contained in Wuhan, that should have been it. But for many of us it wasn’t.

    • Kaitian says:

      It wasn’t obvious that it was going to become a global problem. The Wuhan lockdown was seen by many people as a Chinese overreaction to compensate for their failure to contain SARS 20 years ago. And the Ebola scare of 2014-15 probably left many people with a strong impression that diseases spreading in dirty third world cities won’t become a problem in western countries. Most people here didn’t start worrying until the disease exploded in Italy, seven hours from here by car.

      There is no need to behave like a hoarding prepper. If the government had tried a “containment” strategy, you wouldn’t have had to change your life at all (unless you became a known contact of a patient). Now that it has become a “flatten the curve” strategy, normal infection prevention measures seem enough to keep most people healthy. There’s no need to retreat to a bunker with 200 cans of beans and a shotgun.

      • AlesZiegler says:

        +1.

        The Wuhan lockdown was seen by many people as a Chinese overreaction to compensate for their failure to contain SARS 20 years ago. And the Ebola scare of 2014-15 probably left many people with a strong impression that diseases spreading in dirty third world cities won’t become a problem in western countries. Most people here didn’t start worrying until the disease exploded in Italy, seven hours from here by car.

        Exactly, this describes my own reaction uncanily well. I am not proud of it, of course.

      • Nevertaken says:

        It wasn’t just the shutting down of Wuhan though: it was the fact that shutting down Wuhan didn’t succeed in containing it. If there is an overreaction that doesn’t work, that should be pretty clear evidence that the thing is for real.

  33. sidereal says:

    I don’t really see the need to update regarding survive/thrive. Protecting vulnerable people from a particularly bad virus by shutting down society is something you can only afford to do if your society has plenty of slack in it, but we do!

    On the other hand, disease happens and old people die from it, that’s how it’s always worked. And since things can quickly fall apart (because they are barely hanging on by a thread) we might just have to take our chances.

    • pterofractal says:

      Yes. Without sounding insane (I’m not, I promise!) I’m curious how many people will die from unemployment, homelessness, and related factors, as compared to those that might die from COVID19. I don’t know if there have been any projections, but we might need to perform a cost-benefit analysis here. Of course it would be lovely if we could ensure that people don’t lose their jobs, leading to unemployment and death, but I’m unsure (yet hopeful!) that we can do so in our current political climate.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        You’d need to also subtract lives protected due to this crisis. I remember a couple of months ago I calculated that if we’re under 2000 deaths in Bucharest and the pollution stays at these low levels for a year, we’re in the black. So far we have 35 dead 😀 The numbers pass a quick sanity check – it rounds to about one in 1-2 thousand dead due to pollution in a year (out of something like 30 dead of any causes) (we were the top polluted large city in Europe 3 months ago, and easily comparable to industrialized China).

        • Kaitian says:

          Your calculation assumes that everyone who dies of pollution in a year dies of the pollution that happened that year. I think most people who are said to die of pollution die from damage accumulated by many years of living in a polluted area. So keeping low pollution for a year would prevent some deaths of pollution, but certainly not all or even most pollution deaths of that year.

          But your reasoning is still valid. Since people are mostly staying home, they’re not doing a lot of the stuff that usually kills people. I bet traffic accidents have gone down a lot, probably fights and binge drinking as well.

          On the other hand, I do think that covid deaths plus quarantine related deaths (domestic violence, suicide, people being afraid to go to the hospital for non covid problems, etc) will probably outnumber the saved lives by a lot, and mortality this year will be higher than in other years.

          Now, if the lockdown stays in place for a long time (years?) and people get used to this low resource lifestyle, we might end up in the plus on lives saved. But I don’t expect that to happen.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            Oh, I have absolutely no expectations of precision from my “model”. At the very best it can give a very ballpark figure. And yes, people definitely don’t die that year – lives saved now are actually saved many years down the road, when they (don’t) die of heart attack or respiratory illnesses or cancer. Or, like a worrying amount of studies suggest lately, (don’t) suffer from dementia.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I’m pretty sure pollution like fine particulates do kill this year. I’m not sure, but I imagine a huge number of deaths we ascribe to “pollution” are actually delayed, relatively speaking, until pollution resumes. That’s probably true for even the incremental stuff.

            Sure, something like cancer risk doesn’t quite follow this, but smokers dramatically reduce near term cancer risk just by quitting smoking for a relatively short period of time, IIRC.

            Yeah, pollution effects lag, but I don’t think they lag quite as much as you think, especially air pollution. Now air pollution that turns into ground pollution is different.

          • Kaitian says:

            @HeelBearCub

            Some of the pollution deaths are definitely immediate / short term. E.g. someone having an asthma attack next to a busy street, or an elderly person with pneumonia who might just have survived if he had access to clean air.
            But most pollution deaths are certainly delayed / statistical, and I don’t know how much a one year break in pollution will matter (assuming the pollution returns after). Afaik the cancer risk for smokers only goes back near that of non smokers after 10 years.

            I don’t doubt that even the statistical and delayed pollution deaths will go down a bit thanks to the lockdown. But I don’t think the difference will be equivalent to a whole year’s pollution deaths.

      • Chalid says:

        Mortality rates fall during recessions, actually. The effect is pretty strong.

        • keaswaran says:

          But presumably morbidity and mortality due to alcoholism and domestic abuse rise when people are cooped up. And pollution and car crashes go down. But fatalities per car crash go up as speeds increase. There’s a lot of effects on both sides here, so that you can’t just take one linear association and project it through.

    • Matt M says:

      you can only afford to do if your society has plenty of slack in it, but we do!

      I think this is very much up for debate.

      Consider: The US federal government was, before all this started, up to its eyeballs in debt. State/local governments have to balance their budget, but many are underfunding basic services and have a massive crisis on the horizon with unfunded liabilities (which isn’t technically debt, but looks and smells and quacks like it). All but the largest corporations have no more than a month or so worth of cash on hand to weather a “no business anymore” storm. The average household lives paycheck to paycheck and cannot meet an emergency expense of $400. Millions of American households have negative net worth.

      Where is this “slack” of which you speak?

      I suspect the answer is something like “We have a lot of luxuries we could live without” which is true, but as I address elsewhere, the problem is we cannot just quickly and suddenly convert Netflix into bread, gasoline, meat, or anything else. Yes, if we completely and totally re-organized society over the long haul we could give up a lot of luxuries and produce more necessities, but that simply is not feasible in anything approximating the short term.

      • Logan says:

        I think that comment was meant as a description of the “leftist” perspective, not a real claim.

        For example, I’ve seen many leftists claim that we can afford the federal spending necessary to weather this, especially if we tax the wealthy more. Maybe we’re not doing those things, but we could if conservatives weren’t so unnecessarily stingy. At least that’s a thing I’ve heard said.

        My conservative brain agrees with you that we really can’t weather this, but I’ve always had a survive perspective more than a thrive perspective, so that’s to be expected.

      • No need to produce more necessities. Just produce the same amount of necessities.

      • John Schilling says:

        Where is this “slack” of which you speak?

        The slack is in the United States Government’s AAA credit rating, or AA+ if you go with S&P. This is an enormously valuable thing for the United States to have, which gives us quite a bit of flexibility for dealing with things like surprise pandemics.

        There is the little problem that nobody knows what the actual credit limit is, except in hindsight. So, finite but immeasurable slack.

    • bsrk says:

      I agree with this, with the caveat that it would be nice to get more precise about this. So, I suggest a modification of what is correctly right wing, correctly left wing, right wing bias, left wing bias.

      Correctly right wing: To be able to see the drawbacks of an action.
      Correctly left wing: To be able to see the advantages of an action.

      Right wing excess/bias/overreaction: Being unable to see the advantages of an action.
      Left wing excess/bias/overreaction: Being unable to see the drawbacks of an action.

      Putting the possible hypothesized actions in detail, we get:

      Case 1: Impose a Quarantine: Extreme right wing: It will be a disaster with no upside! Extreme Left wing: It’ll fix everything with no downside!
      Case 2: Lift a Quarantine: Extreme right wing: It will be a disaster with no upside! Extreme Left wing: It’ll fix everything with no downside!
      Case 3: Impose a Travel Ban: Extreme right wing: It will be a disaster with no upside! Extreme Left wing: It’ll fix everything with no downside!
      Case 4: Lift a Travel Ban: Extreme right wing: It will be a disaster with no upside! Extreme Left wing: It’ll fix everything with no downside!

      • Ant says:

        A part of the greens are reactionary leftist. Those are more than able to see the drawbacks of an action.

    • Alyosha says:

      Agreed.

      Assume that the worst-case scenario for letting the virus run its course, with absolutely no government-enforced mitigation efforts, is that 10% of the population dies (FWIW I consider this a very high estimate). This is bad. REALLY bad. Probably worst-thing-since-the-black-plague bad. But it is not an existential threat to our way of life.

      Forcibly shutting down most all voluntary activity, on the otherhand, is an existential threat to our way of life. You can’t seriously argue otherwise–you can only argue about how long we can go before the damage becomes more than we can fix.

      I think it makes perfect sense that the “survive” crowd is more worried about the existential threat, and the “thrive” crowd is willing to risk our way of life (because they see the risk as small) to save lives on the margins.

      Relatedly, I notice that the people most in favor of perpetuating lockdowns (e.g. politicians, billionaires, journos, celebrities) are the ones who are mostly suffering little to no personal consequences from them, and thus almost certainly underestimating the risks inherent to them.

      • albatross11 says:

        But nobody has actually proposed shutting down all life. Grocery stores, liquor stores, gas stations, convenience stores, pharmacies, restaurants offering take-out or delivery, public utilities, farms, meat packing plants, etc., are all continuing to function and nobody proposes shutting them down.

        The shutdowns have an economic cost, as well as a harder-to-estimate (but quite possibly more important) impact on peoples’ mental health and sense of well-being. But they’re not remotely shutting down the whole economy, so that’s the wrong comparison to make.

      • keaswaran says:

        What do you mean by “an existential threat to our way of life”? Is my way of life changed far more radically by working from home/collecting unemployment while watching a lot of Netflix, or by continuing to do my regular job while lots of people are dying around me? Both are massive changes to our way of life. Especially since the “let it burn” process presumably has one week where a substantial fraction of the population is simultaneously too sick to go to work, so we effectively have the desertedness of the current shutdown (for a briefer period), *plus* the sickness.

        • Alyosha says:

          How long do you think businesses can stay shut down and not go under? How many rent checks can landlords miss before they can’t make their mortgage? How many missed mortgage payments before the banks start to go under?

          The government can avert disaster in the very short term by throwing money at these problems, as they are, but it won’t be long before they become unmanageable.

          The domino effect of millions being out of work for an extended period is an existential threat to our fragile financial system. Nobody knows how long we can keep this up and still reasonably hope to recover.

          To be clear, I’m not saying we should abandon all measures and go back to business as usual right now, but I am very concerned that so few people are even willing to acknowledge that we’re playing with fire (or worse, they don’t even realize it).

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            but I am very concerned that so few people are even willing to acknowledge that we’re playing with fire (or worse, they don’t even realize it).

            Yes, I read the “A Failure, But Not of Prediction” essay and comments, and a common observation was that people who predicted it didn’t necessarily act on it, or freak out. Something like a failure of imagination, so some rumination about how to figure out whether or not to freak out at the next catastrophe.

            The next catastrophe is in 1-2 months if these lockdowns don’t end. You just need to notice that 20 million people are out of work. That’s a depression. We should definitely be freaking out about this, and I encourage everyone to panic. I know I am.

          • meh says:

            But even with no central lockdown, it will not be business as usual. We are not going back to the before economy, it will be a new open economy. Who knows how people will react, what business will still have demand? What higher infection rates will yield. Either way we are playing fire. Yes, we should acknowledge this, and try to make the tradeoffs. But it is fire potential in either direction.

          • Matt M says:

            But even with no central lockdown, it will not be business as usual.

            This is highly theoretical.

            With a few notable exceptions (pro sports, concerts, cruise ships) I think it’s entirely possible that a disease which kills 1-in-1000 people (the huge majority of which are elderly or already very sick) will not alter consumer behavior in a meaningful way.

            Once enough time has passed such that the average person is able to appreciate how bad the disease actually is (as compared to today, when people are basing their behaviors on how bad the self-proclaimed experts are assuring them the disease might be), it’s entirely possible most people would choose to go back to life 95% as normal (as in, most people don’t attend pro sporting events or go on cruises very frequently at all anyway).

            I’d also like to point out that if the government itself actually believed this, they wouldn’t be issuing lockdown orders at all. They disagree with your assessment of the likelihood of widespread voluntary behavior alteration.

          • keaswaran says:

            “it’s entirely possible that a disease which kills 1-in-1000 people (the huge majority of which are elderly or already very sick) will not alter consumer behavior in a meaningful way”

            Are you talking about swine flu? Because it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about covid-19. But maybe I’ll assume you’re only talking about young and healthy people, who do seem to have a mortality rate close to 1/1000.

            And a lot of people might reasonable fear not just being one of the 1/1000 of healthy young people that die from it, but rather being in the 1/50 young people that end up in the ICU from it, or being in the 1/3 young people that spend a week or two unable to walk across the house because of shortness of breath.

          • Matt M says:

            Are you talking about swine flu? Because it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about covid-19. But maybe I’ll assume you’re only talking about young and healthy people, who do seem to have a mortality rate close to 1/1000.

            I’m talking about the current overall population fatality rate, which seems to be somewhere around 0.1% (not the case fatality rate).

          • Loriot says:

            But even with no central lockdown, it will not be business as usual.

            Well it sounds like we’re about to run this experiment anyway. The governor of Georgia has called for movie theaters it reopen, but it sounds like at least in the short term, the theaters are going to stay closed anyway because the economics don’t make sense when everyone’s too scared to go to the movies and nothing good’s coming out for the forseeable future.

          • meh says:

            @Matt M

            This is highly theoretical.

            Nope. Did you go to any businesses in the weeks before the official lock downs? Everywhere I went was at most 25% of normal. Places were voluntarily shutting down because nobody was going.

            Your idea that everyone will be super fine with returning to normal seems to be the more highly theoretical idea.

          • ana53294 says:

            @meh

            Sure, in the first few weeks, fewer people will go. But as this thing gets dragged for months, I doubt that the places that are willing to open will get reduced customers unless they are forced to apply some kind of social distancing measures.

            There is a lot of pent-up demand for restaurants, pubs, churches, car repair shops, etc. The only reasons why they may have issues is supply issues (which is an issue in Spain for many things).

          • Matt M says:

            Nope. Did you go to any businesses in the weeks before the official lock downs? Everywhere I went was at most 25% of normal.

            I don’t know where you live, but here in suburban Texas, if I go out today, everything that hasn’t been closed by government decree looks to be ~80% full, at least.

          • John Schilling says:

            The restaurant I went to a few days before lockdown looked to be close to normal; this was in Southern California but a mostly Red Tribe part thereof.

          • baconbits9 says:

            If half of all businesses are closed then only seeing the open ones 80% full is pretty damning.

          • Matt M says:

            If half of all businesses are closed then only seeing the open ones 80% full is pretty damning.

            Nonsense. Businesses aren’t equally interchangeable like that. The fact that I can’t legally get a haircut anywhere makes me no more or less likely to go to Home Depot.

            But the fact that 80% of Home Depot customers are willing to keep going there suggests a similar proportion would probably go get haircuts, if they were allowed to do so.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Not nonsense. They don’t have to be perfectly interchangeable. If I can’t get a haircut I have an hour more and $20 more. If Home Depot traffic is down 20% with massively reduced competition then when other places reopen HD is likely to be emptier and they (perhaps after a short burst) will also be below normal traffic.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Nope. Did you go to any businesses in the weeks before the official lock downs? Everywhere I went was at most 25% of normal.

            I work in NYC and live in NJ. While NJ Transit ridership seemed down on March 9 (lockdowns started March 17), it wasn’t down to 25% (nor was it down the week before), and there were still people crowding in front of Broadway theatres. I went out to dinner in NJ that week, and crowds were normal.

          • meh says:

            if I go out today, everything that hasn’t been closed by government decree looks to be ~80% full, at least.

            Unless the government randomly picked what to close, I’m not sure what I can imply from this.

          • Matt M says:

            baconbits,

            I don’t think there’s an economist on Earth who could claim that a hair salon and Home Depot are “competitors” in any meaningful sense. If you want to get into the “people who don’t get haircuts have more money now” then fine, but you also have to account for something like “what would Home Depot foot traffic look like in a world where quarterly annualized GDP growth is -30%?” I think if you control for all the different economic effects, the fact that Home Depot is still mostly full can be treated as strong evidence that a whole lot of people would still go about their normal lives in the absence of state decrees requiring they shelter in place.

            meh,

            I don’t think it was literally random. Literally random might actually be better. I think it was based on cronyism (anything that generates tax revenue for the state, liquor, weed, lottery tickets, were all declared essential) and paternalism (things people enjoy were banned as frivolous luxuries, even if they could be useful like gardening, or knitting, parks and beaches were closed even if social distancing could be maintained, etc.)

          • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

            @Matt M

            It is not theoretical.

            https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104991/coronavirus-restaurant-visitation-impact-united-kingdom-uk/

            UK ordered restaurants to close on the 20th March, by which point business was already down 80% year on year. They had advised people to avoid them on the 16th, but business had been 20% down for a week before then.
            My work had already switched the vast majority of staff to working from home the week by the 13th.

            I have seen similar stats for somewhere in the US on twitter, but don’t have them to hand.

          • albatross11 says:

            This discussion makes me think there’s a huge amount of local variation in when people started taking the virus seriously. The last time I went out to eat (with my wife, at a restaurant in the middle of a lot of tech-heavy employers, about a week before the schools shut down here) the place was very sparsely populated, and the servers were seating people with empty tables between all parties.

            This leads to the suspicion that a lot of the variation in how quickly things spread may be due to that kind of variation in when people started altering their behavior in response to the virus.

          • baconbits9 says:

            I don’t think there’s an economist on Earth who could claim that a hair salon and Home Depot are “competitors” in any meaningful sense.

            In an ordinary economy they won’t compete ‘in a meaningful sense’ because the economy should be near equilibrium. Closing every hair salon for a day would probably not make a meaningful impact on HD’s bottom line, closing every hair salon and every bar and most restaurants and parks etc, etc, etc for weeks to months is a very different situation. Saying ‘hair salon vs HD is just being obtuse’ its clearly ‘almost nothing to do vs the few places that are open and few opportunities that there are’.

          • meh says:

            @Matt M

            I think our localities are behaving very differently. Where I am, gardening and parks are considered essential. I did not voluntarily isolate much, and the “frivolous” businesses I was visiting were at barely 25% of normal.

            Anyway, my point is that 80% of normal doesn’t mean much if only ‘essential’ business is open (though it seems like your locality has a loose definition of essential). If you told me there was a 1 in ten thousand chance of being shot in the face every time I went out, I would still take that chance occasionally at the supermarket or pharmacy, but I would probably not ever again go to the gym, get a haircut, watch a movie, etc.

            And the 1 in ten thousand is arbitrary, not a claim on the virus. I’m just saying some places are more resistant to losing traffic than others; so the observable traffic at the still open businesses will not necessarily be the same for the closed ones.

          • meh says:

            @NostalgiaForInfinity
            Thanks for the cold hard data.
            By me some places were voluntarily closing in the days leading up to the mandated one.

      • xq says:

        Relatedly, I notice that the people most in favor of perpetuating lockdowns (e.g. politicians, billionaires, journos, celebrities) are the ones who are mostly suffering little to no personal consequences from them, and thus almost certainly underestimating the risks inherent to them.
        My impression is the opposite; e.g. there were some fairly small anti-lockdown protests that a number of politicians have supported (Trump tweeted support) and the media has given generally favorable coverage, while polls show broad public support (>85%) for lockdown policies. I think politicians, journalists and billionaires are more skeptical of lockdown than the public, at least right now.

        • acymetric says:

          and the media has given generally favorable coverage

          Can I ask what media sources you generally tune in to?

  34. Lambert says:

    I suppose once the initial lockdowns loosen, the level of lockdown to enforce becomes a sort of control theory problem.
    There’s a bunch of different things you can enforce (masks, shutting down non-essential businesses etc) which will have an effect on R. By low-hanging-fruit reasoning, there will be diminishing marginal returns on each added bit of disruption
    .
    Once infection rates have fallen, you want to keep R just below 1. This prevents further spikes without excessive disruption.
    The hard part is that right now, there are not enough tests to measure the infection rate properly. It takes around 2 weeks for interventions to have a definite noticeable effect (on the death rate)*. Imagine trying to stay below the speed limit but your speedo only shows how fast you were going two minutes ago.

    You have to be quite conservative in loosening restrictions, lest R climb above 1 without you noticing.
    From the perspective of both diminishing marginal returns and predictability, you want to keep the restrictions in place fairly constant, rather than wildly spinging between complete lockdown and normality.

    If I had to end this comment with some kind of solid conclusion, it would be that thorough testing is vital in the medium term.

    *I’m looking at you, ‘the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed yet’ people. ‘Once the hosptials are overwhelmed’ is a fortnight too late.

    • The Nybbler says:

      *I’m looking at you, ‘the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed yet’ people. ‘Once the hosptials are overwhelmed’ is a fortnight too late.

      The hospitals are not only not overwhelmed, but in NYC hospital visits and admissions peaked (at “some but not all hospitals overwhelmed for a short period”) about three weeks ago.

      • Matt M says:

        In most of the country, the hospitals aren’t even whelmed.

        The average American nurse is currently more likely to be laid off due to a lack of need of her services than to be emergency re-deployed to a special-purpose COVID wing.

        • Randy M says:

          I should have been more aware of this, as I drive by a hospital every day, but it’s still surprising.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Healthcare is one of the hardest hit sectors, employment wise.

            But that doesn’t mean hospitals can’t become overloaded.

            It’s the perfect storm. They’ve tried to hire some nurses or bring some in from other areas and departments, but they don’t always have the same training, and a lot don’t want to stay. Who can blame them? The whole ER is this virus. We’re wearing one disposable gown for our entire shift. We’ve had sit-ins here over staffing issues before, and the demands of this virus made it so much worse. We went from having 14 nurses on at night to sometimes having 10 or less. Eventually, all of us hit that point: “Enough is enough. We’re not clocking in until you bring more support. Do something.”

    • Conrad Honcho says:

      The hospitals aren’t even whelmed.

      Edit: Ninj’erd, so just call this a +1 to Nybbler and Matt M.

      • Matt M says:

        You can take credit, because I definitely didn’t come up with that phrasing, and may be stealing it from you in an earlier OT.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      I love simple models (or I hate complex models?) but in this case “keeping R0 unde 1” is way too simplistic. At the very least you need to consider different locations and age groups. For older/sicker you want to go as low as possible, for kids you don’t really mind a positive R. And you want to lift restrictions based on local conditions, and the corresponding Rs for each age group in each location. I.e. if a town has an elderly R0 of .99, you still want to shut things down, hard. But if the elderly R is .2 and the kids are running around asymptomatic… slap on some masks and let’s grab a beer.

      And I’m probably missing other relevant variables as well.

      • Lambert says:

        Yeah, this was totally just an oversimplified model.

        Not sure you’d want R>1 even in kids or limited geographical areas.
        You’d risk creating a reservoir where it’s endemic and kicking off a bunch of smaller outbreaks elsewhere.

      • demost says:

        I agree that the model is very simplistic, but I think your alternative misses the point of spread vs. non-spread in an important way. Let’s say that within children the R is 2. Then that means that among the 74m children in the US, you will have 50% of them infected in short time. (Really, really short, that is what exponential growth is about.) With 30m infected children around, even if only 10% of them infect a person at risk (like, elderly; and smokers; and people with hypertension… Really, the risk group is LARGE), then you have 3m infected people in the risk group. It does not help you in the slightest that the R-value among elderly is 0.2. They don’t spread the virus, but that’s not required for catastrophy.

        There have been people thinking about whether you can separate the risk group as you suggested, and the answer is clear and simple: No, you can’t, it’s too many.

        But I do agree that it is not just a single R. There ARE different subgroups of the population, different local regions etc. The next best approximation is to think about it not as a single exponential function, but actually as the sum of different exponentials, each with their own exponent. This also helps understanding some of the dynamics of an epidemic: When the epidemic rises (R>1), then it rises as fast as the fastest of the exponentials, because that dominates everything else. On the other hand, when the epidemics dies out (R<1) then it dies out as slowly as the slowest of the exponentials. That is why the decline phase is generally slower than the incline phase.

        And yes, that is still simplistic. In fact, if you take locality into account then it is quite possible that an infection grows polynomially. That is something that you will never see in any model that operates with R-values. But still, I find the model with R a quite useful one.

  35. Randy M says:

    At the risk of conjuring poorly replicating social studies, anyone have thoughts on how the constant wearing of masks changes society, beyond the other effects of the lockdown?
    Maybe it creates a feeling of solidarity. Or maybe it makes strangers seem like sources of infection. Maybe arguments are more frequent, without as much expression possible. Maybe people feel more anonymous, and public behavior is more anti-social.
    Or maybe it doesn’t catch on enough to matter, of course.

    • Milo Minderbinder says:

      I think it varies by locale. I live in San Diego and have been in LA during the lockdown. Mask usage is very high in both places, and shopkeepers/passersby definitely seem off-put if you aren’t wearing one. Friends in rural New Hampshire and North Carolina have reported the opposite, with low compliance rates and mask-wearers being viewed as potential infection vectors.

      For the most part, people are probably looking around and following local norms. High-compliance areas look on masks positively, low-compliance the opposite.

      • Tarpitz says:

        Here in Oxford (England), mask wearers are a fairly small but visible minority – perhaps 10-20%, highest over-representation among East Asians, significant over-representation among South Asians (by far Oxford’s largest minority group). I don’t get the impression that anyone not wearing a mask thinks ill of them; I have no idea what they think of the rest of us. Public behaviour in general feels pretty pro-social and considerate regardless of the mask status of anyone involved, but then, well, it’s Oxford. I suppose I did see one man who appeared to be working on building a Prosecco hoard early in the lockdown period. I also haven’t been to Blackbird Lees (the one really crappy suburb) – maybe it is or was uglier there.

    • Well... says:

      It’s an interesting question. For example…

      – Fear of germs and disease is quite tied up with our behaviors around race and foreigners. A facemask might keep the wearer safe or keep others safe from the wearer, but one way or another it creates a big association between the wearer and Fear of Disease. Could this make “racism” or “xenophobia” (scare quotes in reference to the massive complexity of these terms) worse? Or could it have an alleviating effect if everybody’s wearing them?

      – A more specific version of the above: It seems like many non-Asian Americans used to associate the wearing of facemasks in particular with East Asians and East Asian immigrants. Now that we all are wearing them, what is left of that association? What impact will the association have on our future perceptions of different races/ethnicities?

      – Will we get accustomed to not seeing all of people’s faces when we’re out and about, but still trusting them during all those little microinteractions?

      – How will the masked perceive the unmasked, and vice versa? Will a mask or no-mask become symbolic of lots of other big important things? (If it hasn’t already.)

      • Randy M says:

        – Will we get accustomed to not seeing all of people’s faces when we’re out and about, but still trusting them during all those little microinteractions?

        Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m worried about. It’s just disconcerting to see people veiled. Obviously some societies have adapted to it, but Western culture incorporates a lot of body language into social interaction. A disarming smile, etc.
        Heck, nearly all my action figures with masks are bad guys.

        – How will the masked perceive the unmasked, and vice versa? Will a mask or no-mask become symbolic of lots of other big important things? (If it hasn’t already.)

        And here I thought we were done with “Shirts vs Skins” in middle school.

        • The Pachyderminator says:

          It’s still possible to walk down the street with a mask and no shirt, and thereby signal whatever you were going to signal by going shirtless just as effectively.

          Heck, you don’t have to stop with the shirt. There’ll never be a better time to post nude photos online with your face covered.

      • keaswaran says:

        > Will we get accustomed to not seeing all of people’s faces when we’re out and about, but still trusting them during all those little microinteractions?

        We already have this in the form of windshields. The average American interacts with hundreds or thousands of people a day without seeing any of their faces. They are usually angry at all of them. It’ll be interesting to see how this translates to seeing all of the person but the face, rather than just seeing the metal carapace.

        (Incidentally, I’ve suspected there’s some intrinsic similarity between the way suburban Americans treat an automobile and the way conservative muslims treat a hijab – if someone’s out in public without being in their covering, you feel simultaneously slightly sorry for them and disgusted at them, even though it’s fine when you’re indoors among close personal contacts.)

        • Well... says:

          I was trying to think of analogous situations, but I don’t think windshields is one of them. On the road I’m mostly interacting with other people as cars, rather than as people obscured by windshields. If I get close enough to pick out the details of the driver, then my pattern-finding pretty much does its best to ignore the windshield/side windows. Compare with facemasks, where the mask is quite front-and-center.

          • keaswaran says:

            But I think it’s notable that people interacting with cars stereotypically do so in extremely rage-filled and uncharitable ways! It would be surprising to me if interacting with obvious humans in masks is more extreme than that!

          • Well... says:

            On the road you are interacting with other people as cars, and you are also acting as a car. With facemasks, you are interacting with people as people, they just happen to be kind of hidden behind a big “hey remember there’s a scary virus going around” symbol. You are also aware of your own hiddenness behind that same symbol, but you are also interacting as a person. Surely this explains the relative non-severity of our facemasked interactions to those of our interactions on the road.*

            *Although it’s worth mentioning that the vast majority of interactions on the road are amicable. I think they just escalate a lot faster if there’s a bad actor or a misunderstanding.

          • John Schilling says:

            With facemasks, you are interacting with people as people, they just happen to be kind of hidden behind a big “hey remember there’s a scary virus going around” symbol.

            A person who cannot smile, or frown or grimace or the like? A person with only half a face? Is your lizard brain going to recognize a thing with only half a face as fully human?

            That’s a serious question. One thing secret police forces around the world have learned is that it’s easier to get your unfortunately still human secret policemen to horrifically mistreat their prisoners if you first put a hood over the victim and take away their face. Also common practice for executioners and firing squads, for the same reason. And, on the flip side, Hollywood has learned that if you want the audience to empathize with an alien or a robot, it almost has to have a face. So do check in with your lizard brain before answering.

            It is far from obvious that the dominant social effect of ubiquitous masks is going to be “hey remember there’s a scary virus going around”, with no dehumanization of the half-faced humanoids we are all going to be dealing with all the time in this brave new world.

          • b_jonas says:

            @John Schilling: You’re probably right, there is certainly some instinctive dehumanizing effect. But I think it’s unfair to compare a mask to a full hood. A mask covers less.

            I guess if the masks are kept in the long term, we’ll have to invent ones that are more form-fitting to the nose and the skin on the sides of the nose, and patterns of paint and texture of the mask that make the face look more expressive.

          • John Schilling says:

            I’m not sure having half your face stuck in the uncanny valley wouldn’t be worse than being half-faceless.

          • Matt M says:

            I don’t know much about this topic, but aren’t the eyes the most “humanizing” part of the face.

            When I see a masked person, I don’t really see inhuman or even uncanny valley. Yes, having their mouth covered makes nonverbal communication somewhat more difficult and certain facial expressions are harder to communicate.

            But if you can see someone’s eyes, you know you are dealing with a human.

          • b_jonas says:

            @Matt M: the eyes and eyebrows are the most important, but the nose and the part of the cheeks close to the nose are also pretty important. The mouth matters very little to make them more human, as we know by experience because people with a huge beard and moustache covering their mouth doesn’t make them seem less human. The biggest effect of not seeing the mouth is that it’s sometimes harder to understand their speech.

          • John Schilling says:

            Smiles and the like also seem to matter a fair bit; whether that’s mouth or lips or cheeks it’s all part of the mask zone.

          • albatross11 says:

            But we know there are a lot of societies where going masked in public during flu season is totally normal, and they don’t seem to fall apart via lizard-brain misfirings. That makes a pretty strong case that we can manage the same thing.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @John Schilling

            Yeah, smiles are specifically something that I’ve noticed missing in people who are wearing masks. It definitely makes things feel a bit less personal to me as a smiler.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            Is there any useful mask where people can see me smiling?

          • albatross11 says:

            There are clear plastic air helmets that provide you with filtered air from a battery-powered air pump you carry around. That would probably protect you but not those around you, though.

            One interesting cultural comment here: Foreigners (especially Eastern Europeans) often comment on how, when they first come to the US, they find it weird and a bit creepy how everyone smiles all the time. Smiling as a way to diffuse social tension and convey good intentions and such may be a much bigger deal in US culture than in other places.

    • A number of people, myself among them, have worried about the reduction in privacy due to facial recognition software. I wonder to what extent that problem is reduced if many people are wearing face masks.

      • Well... says:

        Bruce Schneier’s written a whole bunch worrying about privacy and security in general during this ordeal, but in particular he also shared a story about a company claiming it can perform facial recognition on people wearing face masks:

        The company now says its masked facial recognition program has reached 95 percent accuracy in lab tests, and even claims that it is more accurate in real life, where its cameras take multiple photos of a person if the first attempt to identify them fails.

      • Viliam says:

        Unfortunately, face masks also reduce recognition by humans.

        In my neighborhood, there was an increase of theft, recently. Because even if people notice “a man wearing a mask” doing something suspicious, if he can run away, they don’t have much of a good description. Also, fewer people on the streets mean smaller chance to be caught, and smaller chance to call someone for help.

        If the criminals keep adapting, I wonder how much crime we are going to see.

        And of course, it will be interesting how the rest of the society will react. Maybe instead of xenophobia, it will simply be a strong distrust of anyone who is not a neighbor I recognize.

        (Possibly even an opposite of xenophobia, because a person of different color will feel “less anonymous”. The saying “all [insert group] look the same to me” now applies to everyone’s own ethnic group, too.)

        • Well... says:

          With more people home all day, the opportunities for theft (from homes anyway) goes down. Also, in my part of town it seems like people are out on their front porches and stuff more, not less. Maybe a function of the weather more than anything.

          • Matt M says:

            With more people home all day, the opportunities for theft (from homes anyway) goes down.

            Unless criminals feel sufficiently desperate that they just substitute robbing empty houses with robbing occupied houses.

            There’s a pretty common theory in pro-gun circles that the UK experiences more “hot” burglaries than the US because American criminals are afraid of being shot by the occupants. And hot burglaries are far more dangerous and traumatizing for the victims than cold ones are…

          • acymetric says:

            Aren’t there things that could be robbed other than homes? Also, some homes are long-term empty now as people are holed up somewhere else (with family, etc) and some people are still leaving the house to work.

          • Well... says:

            I think it’s pretty commonly accepted that burglars prefer an empty house. Less chance of getting shot, yes, but also less chance of being detected, identified, having the incident reported, having something go wrong, etc. A burglar wants to get in and get out as fast and smoothly as possible, regardless of whether guns are legal in that locale.

            I would guess that in the preference hierarchy of crimes to commit, “rob an empty house” is not directly above “rob an occupied house”; there are probably many alternative crimes a would-be burglar would consider before resorting to a home invasion.

            I’ve also heard that when criminals do knowingly b&e an occupied house, it’s usually because they’re there with worse intentions than just to steal. So home invaders are probably largely not the same set of criminals as burglars.

        • Matt M says:

          Maybe more jurisdictions should adopt the brilliant policies of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, and politely ask the criminals to stop committing crimes until COVID is over.

    • AlesZiegler says:

      I live in Prague, where mask wearing is mandatory for all outside activities, except getting a beer at a takeout window (or other drinks, but really, it is all about beer), prohibition on which was deemed untenable and quickly relaxed, and for solitary physical exercise on public playgrounds. This mandatory mask wearing is in place for about a month.

      Overall, I am still impressed by how effectively it destroys social life here, although people are gradually getting used to it and thus learning how to engage in social activities that might spread our friend the novel coronavirus even under such limitations.

      Masks are uncomfortable, which limits your desire to be outside and meet with people. Even better, they are even more uncomfortable when weather is pleasantly warm, although from personal experience level of discomfort with homemade cloth mask is nontrivial even when temperatures are below 10 degrees Celsius.

      Paradoxically, surgical masks are far more comfortable and thus better for outdoor activities tham homemade masks, which might reduce their effectiveness as anticoronavirus measure compared to homemade variant. Most people you see on the streets here are still wearing homemade masks, but something like third have surgical ones, which started to filter down to pharmacies which sell them for reasonable prices after government bought a ton of them in China.

      You see groups of people socializing around takeout windows, but to do that, you need to take your mask off, which is a thing that is not seen as responsible, and it seems to me that people in those groups skew heavily towards, not to put too fine a point on it, “low class drunkards”, and it appears that “responsible adults” are mostly staying away from them.

      Czech active detected cases are on plateau for a week, so lockdown measures are presumably effective. Slight relaxation with opening of some nonessential businesses started yesterday.

  36. Bobobob says:

    So hey, oil just plunged to a little over $1 a barrel. Are we depressed yet?

    • baconbits9 says:

      $0.23

      Really good chance of going negative today.

      • Bobobob says:

        Does this number have an actual, real-life meaning, or is it some kind of artifact? Could someone pull up a tanker to an oil facility and literally take on a million barrels for less than a million dollars?

        • baconbits9 says:

          As far as I know it is a real life price that oil producers are getting for their products.

          • Bobobob says:

            If people have spare empty oil tankers lying around, wouldn’t it make sense to load up to the gills at 23 cents a barrel, spend a few leisurely months cruising up and down the Pacific Ocean, then sell at a huge profit when the price of oil rebounds?

            (This is coming from someone who has no idea how the international oil tanker industry works)

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Bobobob

            Yes, it would. But nobody has spare empty oil tankers, because all the existing oil tankers are actually doing that already, which is why the price is dropping negative.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Yes, it would. But nobody has spare empty oil tankers, because all the existing oil tankers are actually doing that already, which is why the price is dropping negative.

            Kind of right, kind of wrong. The idea is correct in theory but the price action today is very different from what you (or I) should expect from such a situation. I think this has a lot to do with the bankruptcy of Hin Leong Trading yesterday.

          • Greg says:

            The contracts are for delivery to Cushing, Oklahoma. Supertankers will not help.

            This is a Dis-uSA thing. World (Brent) prices are still positive, but world storage (including usable supertankers) may well be full by the end of May.

        • Joshua Hedlund says:

          It’s a temporary artifact of being the last day for this cycle’s monthly contract pricing + no one in the market wanting to take on any more of the oil being delivered today. (Or something like that… I just read economists on twitter.) The next month’s contract price (which will start being reported on tomorrow) is in the ~$20 range.

          • baconbits9 says:

            There is still oil being offered at this price, so its not an ‘artifact’, actual contracts are being signed at this price which is

            NEGATIVE $40 a barrel.

            These numbers are likely an artifact of some kind, but there are real world implications. Someone is going bankrupt.

        • baconbits9 says:

          -$1.66

          Negative -1.66 a barrel. If you had that hypothetical empty tanker you could float away with a full hull of oil and $1,660,000.

          • Bobobob says:

            The world must have at least a few decommissioned and empty oil tankers. If 10,000 readers of SSC chipped in $1,000 apiece, would that be enough to buy one? $10,000 apiece? Would this be worthwhile from a profit perspective? (I don’t actually propose doing this, but it seems like a good armchair exercise.)

          • baconbits9 says:

            You couldn’t actually get them to the place and time you need to fulfill the contracts quickly enough.

          • Bobobob says:

            You couldn’t actually get them to the place and time you need to fulfill the contracts quickly enough.

            What if the same thing happens, with the same (artifactually or not) negative price, at the same time next month, assuming that the world lockdown continues until then? If you started getting your act together now, could you have an empty tanker in place to take advantage of the situation?

          • baconbits9 says:

            If the same thing happens next month I don’t think you will be able to count on the money you get paid being worth anything….

          • Bobobob says:

            Right, the money will probably be worthless, but not the oil after the world economy recovers.

          • John Schilling says:

            The world must have at least a few decommissioned and empty oil tankers.

            Rusted-out ones with holes in all the tanks, yes. A few that are tied up in legal arguments so tangled it would take absurd sums of money to pay off enough lawyers to have any confidence “your” tanker won’t be seized with its contents. Probably some North Korean ones, but I repeat myself.

            Practically usable tankers sitting idle, no, there is no requirement that even one such thing exists anywhere on Earth. That particular sidewalk is in fact monitored very closely for stray $20 bills, and you aren’t even in the first ten thousand people to think of this clever scheme.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            What stops them from destroying the oil instead of selling it for negative dollars?

          • Bobobob says:

            OK, then, I guess I won’t be having that conversation with my wife. “Guess what, hon, I just mortgaged the house to buy a one-five hundredth share in a decommissioned North Korean oil tanker!”

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Maybe destroying oil is more expensive than paying someone else to cart it away and use/sell/destroy it themselves?

          • baconbits9 says:

            What stops them from destroying the oil instead of selling it for negative dollars?

            I don’t know exactly, but it is probably a combination of

            1. Very little oil actually got sold at this price
            2. Destroying the oil would take time to do, they probably haven’t installed an emergency ‘if oil falls below $0 open this pump and burn the oil’ spigot.

          • Randy M says:

            “Destroying the oil would take time to do”
            Invisible caveat of “without losing much more than that amount of money in collateral damage.”
            Oil is famous and infamous for it’s ease of destruction.

          • Chalid says:

            I’d expect that destroying the oil is not something the government will allow you to just do, especially not in a populated area, for generally sound environmental and safety reasons. It’s nasty stuff.

          • Lambert says:

            Crude is really dangerous stuff.
            It’s toxic and carcinogenic and flammable and viscous and sulphurous….

            Can’t just Kuwait yourself.

            And the infrastructure’s not designed to be switched off and on again. (Getting it running again costs more than paying people to take your oil away)

      • EchoChaos says:

        And we are… negative!

    • Well... says:

      Bobobob’s question has me wondering:

      To what degree is the strength of Islamic terrorist organizations* negatively correlated with the strength of OPEC’s member countries’ economies?

      If the degree is high, then how much would you predict it increases the odds of a major Islamic terrorist attack on a Western country in the next, say, 12-36 months?

      (I don’t think this is CW as conventionally defined here, right?)

      *Presumably these organizations can still recruit, share information, and plan attacks even while abiding by social distancing and shelter-in-place requirements.

      • baconbits9 says:

        My gut would say that if you are such an organization that significant weakness would motivate you to becoming a regional power in the near term, not to try to launch an overseas attack.

    • Statismagician says:

      This is production that can’t be/would be really hard to shut off, after storage is full, because consumer demand is at some low percentage of normal, right? Just checking my understanding.

    • broblawsky says:

      Is this a violation of the efficient market hypothesis?

      • John V says:

        It depends on what you mean. Is it a violation of the efficient market hypothesis that oil sells negative? Not really. If you bought front month CL futures today, you will have to accept physical delivery of oil in Oklahoma very shortly. It is currently extremely expensive to store or transport oil there.

        Is it a violation of the efficient market hypothesis that oil front month futures were trading at $19 on Friday at close? Probably. But really most of the big players already rolled their futures or were holding their positions for physical settlement. So what was remaining was an relatively illiquid market filled with speculators. If there was a shock in the opposite direction, going short without having the physical oil to deliver could be nearly as risky as going long without having the storage to accept the physical oil. It’s roughly the same mechanism, shock causes speculators to rush for the exits which causes cascading margin calls. So while shorting was probably a great play in hindsight, there is at least some explanation of why people may not have wanted to risk it.

    • What has struck me about stories on the oil price decline over the past month or two is that they all seem to take it as a bad thing. Oil is something we consume. Having it cheaper is a good thing for everyone but the producers.

      • matkoniecz says:

        Sudden crash may be unhealthy with producers crashing (what may result in undersupply in future harming everyone) and crash for oil replacements.

        • Matt M says:

          Are producers crashing though?

          Despite these crazy price movements today, Exxon stock is down only 4%. The market certainly is acting like this is just some weird number that doesn’t mean much. If it legitimately believed “For the forseeable future, it won’t be worth it to take oil out of the ground, even if you could do so for free,” all the large IOCs would be crashing proportionally, wouldn’t they?

          • Anonymous Bosch says:

            The market certainly is acting like this is just some weird number that doesn’t mean much.

            The market has been acting that way about a lot of numbers for a long time now.

          • Greg says:

            Exxon is diversified geographically – it has relatively little exposure to US production. It’s second, third and fourth tier producers doing the fracking who will be driven out by this.

            Edit to add:

            And, as above, this is is a Dis-uSA thing, oil for delivery to Cushing, OK.

            The world (Brent) price is still positive.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            The world is still going to want oil in a year. Exxon will have business.

            It was mostly around $70 this year, and is now around $40. They haven’t escaped unscathed.

          • matkoniecz says:

            Major oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron have their own storage facilities and refineries but hundreds of smaller producers rely on pipeline companies to transport their production, and to storage tanks in Cushing to hold onto it.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/business/stock-market-live-trading-coronavirus.html

            It sounds like Exxon will be paid to receive oil from smaller producers.

          • rumham says:

            Are producers crashing though?

            Yes. Bankruptcy is coming for many in the next few weeks. The actual producers anyway, as the big guys rarely run their own rigs.

          • Matt M says:

            Yes. Bankruptcy is coming for many in the next few weeks.

            If this is so certain, why isn’t their stock at-or-near zero today?

            And yes, I understand that many have seen their stock price fall dramatically over the last month or so. But yesterday, specifically, “crude oil” was down basically infinity percent, but most oil-related companies were down 2-5%.

          • matkoniecz says:

            If this is so certain, why isn’t their stock at-or-near zero today?

            Maybe they expect bailout (done in way that will not impact owners at all) and transferring all losses to a general public?

            Also, it may be unclear which ones will go bankrupt.

            Also, either rumham or stock market or both may be wrong.

      • John Schilling says:

        The United States of America is a producer and net exporter of oil. On average, a decline in oil price is bad for the US. A modest, slow decline would be a very slight bad because only barely a net exporter, but a sharp unexpected decline throws an uncertainty premium on both sides of the equation – the producers are not well prepared to endure the revenue shortfall, and the consumers are not well prepared to exploit the opportunities afforded by cheap oil.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          What John said.

          But, not only this, but the price of oil is falling as a direct result of the loss of demand. The future price of oil is also a marker of where the market thinks demand will be in the future.

          That signal is decidedly negative in nature. Even if it only corresponds with what we already know, the fact that the oil traders are backing this up with monetary bets is a kind of confirmation of that negative news.

          • Randy M says:

            Wonder how much of this is related to airlines. Planes are still flying but this can’t continue long with one person every third row.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Randy M:
            I doubt that is markedly so, other than as a part of the overall lack of demand.

            The aviation industry represents 7.8% of final oil consumption worldwide, while maritime shipping accounts for 6.7%. Consumption by the aviation industry is growing the most rapidly – in fact, up until the early 1980s, it was responsible for less energy use than shipping. Both figures pale in comparison to road transportation (passenger cars and freight vehicles), which represents 49.3% of global final consumption.

          • Randy M says:

            Right, thanks.

          • Viliam says:

            Planes are still flying but this can’t continue long with one person every third row.

            With negative oil prices, airlines could actually make a lot of money flying empty planes. They just need to burn a lot of oil inefficiently!

            Disclaimer: I am not an economist. Follow my advice at your own risk.

        • FLWAB says:

          It’s certainly bad for the State of Alaska. Alaska has no income or sales tax, and relies almost entirely on “mineral taxes”, of which the vast majority is from oil. When oil price and production falls, the budget disappears. Alaska has spent the last six years fighting over how to balance the budget after oil dropped from $100 a barrel to $50, and in the process has used up all of the State’s savings. Things were starting to look a little better and now this. At this rate they’re going to have to pass taxes on residents or else start depleting the Permanent Fund.

        • The United States of America is a producer and net exporter of oil. On average, a decline in oil price is bad for the US.

          No. Imagine oil could be produced for free through magic. America would lose out on some export income, but it would free up a lot of resources currently used to produce oil to produce other products, some of which could be exported.

          • Randy M says:

            It depends on the reason, though. If oil is cheap because there’s plummeting demand because, say, a significant portion of the population is under house arrest, that’s bad. If oil is cheap because demand drops after we develop cold fusion, that’s great.

      • baconbits9 says:

        What has struck me about stories on the oil price decline over the past month or two is that they all seem to take it as a bad thing. Oil is something we consume. Having it cheaper is a good thing for everyone but the producers

        Today’s story isn’t about oil prices being lower, its about a commodity market failing during a time of crisis. How bad it gets remains to be seen but a 300% price decline in oil in 12 hours is not a normal situation and more likely reflects the destruction of the value of capital than it does a net gain by consumers through lower prices.

        • Matt M says:

          Indeed.

          If you go to your local gas station today and expect that they’re going to pay you to fill up your tank, you’re going to be quite disappointed…

      • keaswaran says:

        I’ve noticed a similar weirdness about coverage of housing prices.

        Under usual coverage, it’s bad when oil prices go up and good when they theoretically go down. But now that they are actually going down, they’re finding all the bad.

        Similarly, under usual coverage, it’s good when housing prices go up and bad when they theoretically go down. But there’s all sorts of good to find around “affordability” when housing gets cheap, even if homeowners lose value in their stakes.

        • zardoz says:

          It’s true. They’ll find a way to give anything a negative spin. If it’s a sunny day, they’ll complain about the lack of rain. If it rains, they’ll complain about how bad the weather is.

    • Tenacious D says:

      With negative oil prices, could someone drill an injection well in the vicinity of a hub and sell carbon credits for putting it back into the ground?

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        If we could just put it back in the ground, wouldn’t oil producers do that?

      • FLWAB says:

        You could, assuming you already had a well built and ready to accept oil next week and the infrastructure in place to move the oil from it’s delivery spots to your well.

  37. pacificverse says:

    Dear god… if SlateStarCodex readers believe the bullcrap media narrative that the WHO and China downplayed the outbreak in any way, Sino-American relations are doomed.

    There was no cover-up beyond a four-day delay at around Christmas, well within margins of error of skittish officials thinking that doctors were seeing things in the middle of flu season. The COVID outbreak was front page news in East Asia by Jan 1st, and experts from all over the world were in Wuhan by the first week of January. Everything was done with the maximum of speed, transparency, and professionalism humanly possible. That is indisputable to anyone who has been watching the outbreak since day one.

    The WHO followed standard outbreak control protocol, and advocated for maximum effort containment achieved by contact tracing and quarantine (prior to COVID, the WHO never ever used travel bans as a means of disease control. Not during the height of the SARS outbreak, not during Ebola, never). Following the Wuhan lockdown, caseloads in China outside Wuhan were in the mid-thousands. An export rate of several cases per foreign country per day was expected to be controllable by standard contact tracing and quarantine. Milan and Seattle lost containment by very narrow margins of one or two leakers.

    Some nations (herd immunity) decided to go for mitigation, and the WHO and China shouted at them loudly and angrily. Nations that failed to implement contact tracing properly, or whose contact tracing programs failed (Italy), created huge caseloads which swamped contact tracing elsewhere, including the United States.

    China bears not one iota of responsibility. It made a maximum effort, and held up its end of the bargain.

    The Yellow Press played a major role in inciting the Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine?). Chinese public opinion (relevant to its leaders or not) will not tolerate talk of reparations, not without extreme resentment. Too many bad memories from the Opium Wars. If the American body politic is so foolish to go through with this lunacy, there is a substantial risk of China taking a hard right turn into xenophobic fascist territory. Of course, all of these unpleasant outcomes are acceptable to the American body politic, what with American strategic supremacy and everything…. right of might, right?

    • HeelBearCub says:

      FYI, SSC readers != SSC commenters. The commenters skew substantially compared to the readership.

      And the commenters are doing the standard “this information confirms my pre-existing biases so I will believe it” and/or “this is something I can pick up as a club and beat my outgroup over the head with” thing that us descended from ape sentient beings are prone to.

      • Anteros says:

        Well, I’ll agree with that as I see it both in other commenters as well as myself.

        Is there an obvious way in which commenters skew compared to readers?

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          The commentariat skews to the right of the readership.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Not just right.

            Skew is anti-feminist, libertarian and right. Any/all of those.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Of the readership? Proportionally? There’s so few libertarians, anywhere with a libertarian skews proportionally libertarian.

          • Anteros says:

            I guess I’ve noticed the right skew, and the presence of actual libertarians, but not really any anti-feminism.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I don’t know what the latest survey said, but the readership survey has typically, IIRC, showed that people who read the blog are much more “urbane Democrats” than anything else. I would say that they are self describing as sorta “standard blue-tribe”.

            Indeed, when I first pointed out that the commentariat skewed the way I am describing, Scott said “No. No. Look at these survey results!” I think more recently someone analyzed the survey results as impacted by self-reported comment frequency and found substantial skew. But I can’t remember the particulars.

          • Randy M says:

            but not really any anti-feminism.

            Has feminism made waves recently? I guess metoo is basically feminism, and the Kavanough accusations were tangled up with that too.

            But I think feminism in the wild has become slightly less mainstream (basically there’s understanding that we’ve long since moved past the “women are people too” part of the agenda) and slightly less relevant (probably in part due to a split brought about by trans rights), thus not talked about as much here.

            But if you look back at older posts, SSC, due to posts that pushed back against over broad feminist claims, and that argued in favor of less socially adroit nerds not being deserving of scorn, got a decent amount of discussion about feminism, with much less than mainstream levels of preference for the ideology.

            TLDR, I am agreeing with HBC.

          • Greg says:

            US Democrats are much more right-wing than normal people most everywhere in the world.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Greg

            True on fiscal issues, very false on social issues.

            Nowhere else in the world is due date abortion considered a mainstream opinion, for example.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Anteros:
            How long have you been frequenting this blog? There is a long and illustrious history of anti “SJW” rhetoric, from Scott himself even.

          • Nick says:

            @HeelBearCub
            Anteros appears to have started commenting on Christmas last year.

          • Matt M says:

            Even on fiscal issues I’m not convinced it’s true.

            There are plenty of developed countries with lower and/or more regressive taxation policies than the US who aren’t considered radical right-wing and/or libertarian states.

          • Matt M says:

            The SSC comments section is “anti-feminism” to the extent that it has a non-zero amount of people on it willing to question some of the core premises of feminism, yes.

            Because most places don’t have that.

          • salvorhardin says:

            Greg, I think your contention was true twenty years ago but is much less true now. The Democratic Party of Clinton’s era included no really important left-wing faction by e.g. European meanings of left-wing; but Bernie Sanders, AOC, etc would be recognized as leftists anywhere.

            The US and European right wings have also moved closer to each other, with nationalism in the ascendancy and fiscal conservatism on the decline in both.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Nick:
            He said he was “unlurking”, so I’m curious how long he had been reading the comments.

          • eh says:

            I think it’s remarkably culturally blue, considering that it’s skewed politically red. I also think that the skew towards generalised ideological weirdness (libertarian, rationalist, communist, utopian, Singapore-is-pretty-great-ist, or otherwise) is much more striking than the skew to the right. Although I don’t have stats for it, subjectively it feels like you’re more likely to find someone on the nominal right who approves of late-term abortion or a UBI/NIT here than in the general population.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @eh:

            Given the set A of all beliefs, and the set C of generally common beliefs, SSC ~ A – C.

          • meh says:

            Given the set A of all beliefs, and the set C of generally common beliefs, SSC ~ A – C.

            And this is actively cultivated much of the time.

          • Deiseach says:

            Skew is anti-feminist, libertarian and right. Any/all of those.

            Okay, I’ll cop to the “anti-feminist” despite being female myself, given that “not rah-rah for abortion = anti-feminist horrible misogynist sexist” in the current political climate – including in my own country, before anyone thinks I’m fighting culture wars abroad.

            That definition of “anti-feminist” does not bother me one whit, nor any of the “if you’re not on board with this laundry list of social liberalisation, you are A Bad Person”. Yes I am a bad person, but it’s not my opinions on divorce that made me such. Ditto with being on the right.

            As an aside, I am seeing “centrist” being used as A Dirty Word (ironically, in fandom discussions of a fictional character from a magical fantasy history novel/TV show), and my impressions are that this is coming from the left-ish side (anything from ‘vaguely on the left of the mainstream Democratic party’ to ‘full-blown progressive in every manner’). Centrism is bad because – well, I’m not entirely sure why it’s bad, apart from “not alone does it not sufficiently demonise the Right – who as we all know, are all Alt-Rite Nazi Fascists – but it is insufficiently enthusiastic for the Left – who as we all know think, do, say and believe the Only Feasible Moral Ethical Correct Things”. Being a centrist means you refuse to Stand Up and Do The Right Thing and other such wickedness.

            Libertarian, though? How very dare you! 😀

      • EchoChaos says:

        this information confirms my pre-existing biases so I will believe it

        I believe this, but only because I already was biased to.

        (Have we done that joke before?)

      • Ouroborobot says:

        Irony level: over 9000

        • HeelBearCub says:

          Sick burn, bruh.

          • Ouroborobot says:

            You are correct, and I should not have posted this. I do, however, think there is a bit of a stench attached to a comment that seems to malign the other commenters and imply one is above their mortal failings, while arguably demonstrating that to be untrue. I should have simply said this instead rather than be snarky about it.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I meant literally all humans, me included.

            In the Douglas Adams, some of us thought coming down from the trees was a big mistake, sense.

          • Ouroborobot says:

            If I misread your tone, then I apologize.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            No worries, no real apology needed, but apology readily accepted.

      • Erusian says:

        For those of you who do lean more left wing… is supporting China a left wing stance? My impression is that both the left and right have issues with China, they just disagree on what issues to prioritize and how to best handle the situation.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Obligatory I am very much not a lefty.

          My impression of the commentariat is that “conventional lefties” are fairly anti-China, but not as harshly as righties, but that the very hard left are pro-China, either because they still espouse a version of Communism or because they aren’t aligned with the USA.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          “Supporting” China isn’t left-wing stance. Caring about Chinese people might be more left-wing.

          It’s really something that cuts across the political divide in a not very partisan manner. It’s used in a partisan manner, but not in an ideologically consistent way. (e.g. Think about Obama saying China was the big current threat in 2012, and how that was treated in 2017)

          • Erusian says:

            Sure, but that’s not what this comment is. It’s not concerned about Asian-American racism, it’s about how the Chinese government did nothing wrong.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Erusian:
            ?

            Where are you getting “racism” from?

            The caring about Chinese people? That’s not about racism, it’s about one world, kumbaya, love and happiness. I mean I guess you could stretch it there, but that wasn’t my meaning at all. I was talking about literal people in China, as opposed to US citizens of any ethnic derivation.

            Think about Obama saying China was the big current threat in 2012, and how that was treated in 2017

            Obama identified China as a threat for a number of reasons, but none of them had anything to do with anti-Asian bias, or lack thereof. Some of them had to do specifically with the authoritarian nature of China.

          • Erusian says:

            I suppose I presumed you meant American Chinese people, partly because I know several left wingers very concerned with atmospheres of xenophobia and the like.

        • Statismagician says:

          I don’t know what I count as, but I think the left dislikes China on human rights grounds and the right dislikes China on security/economic grounds. Whether or not you ‘support China’ depends on specific topic and context, not party.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            the right dislikes China on security/economic grounds

            I don’t think this is correct.

            There are anti-interventionist, anti-globalist, isolationists on both sides of the political spectrum.

            The “pro-business” types in the Republican party have no issues with China providing cheap labor for American capital’s profit.

            The globalist/international engagement types in the Democratic party see economic growth in China as a net positive, with some negative externalities imposed on parts of the US economy.

            etc.

          • Statismagician says:

            Modify to ‘among those on the left/right who dislike China,’ then?

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Statismagician:
            Even that doesn’t seem right.

          • Statismagician says:

            Huh. All right, disregard.

          • FLWAB says:

            I hear a lot of human rights criticism of China from the right. However it is specifically from Christians and Christian organizations and the main concern is the lack of true freedom of religion in China. Churches across the country hear stories from Chinese pastors and missionaries detailing crackdowns on house churches, the difficulty of getting Bibles (last I checked you needed an “official” Bible printed by a state organization or else it is illegal to own, and the state entity that prints it deliberately prints far less than demand and gives priority for distribution to State registered churches, which are required to submit to various de-fanging restrictions. That may have changed in recent years, I’m not sure). So if your average Christian evangelical has heard anything about modern China they’ve probably heard about human rights abuses that specifically target Chinese Christians.

          • Matt M says:

            FLWAB,

            The tribal-flipped version of that is the recent journalist-class concern for the plight of Uighur Muslims.

            And the 90s version of that was “Free Tibet” and following the Dalai Llama around on speaking tours and such.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @Matt M: So you’re saying Islam is trendy now the same way Buddhism was in the ’90s?

          • FLWAB says:

            So you’re saying Islam is trendy now the same way Buddhism was in the ’90s?

            I think it’s trendy in that Muslim persecution sells more papers (gets more clicks?) than Christian persecution in blue tribe enclaves. But the fact is that in the last couple of years Xi has brought about a strong crackdown against religious believers of all types in China. Some people are saying its the worst persecution since the Cultural Revolution. Even registered churches who have complied with government requrests (such as putting up Chinese flags instead of crosses, singing patriotic songs, and having government security cameras installed so all services can be monitered) have been raided, and house churches are being taken out one by one. The Uighur persecution is a part of that larger push. Here’s an interesting article laying out the situation from The Guardian, a source which shouldn’t be too biased towards Christians. Here’s an interesting exceprt:

            As of 2018, the government has implemented sweeping rules on religious practices, adding more requirements for religious groups and barring unapproved organisations from engaging in any religious activity. But the campaign is not just about managing behaviour. One of the goals of a government work plan for “promoting Chinese Christianity” between 2018 and 2022 is “thought reform”. The plan calls for “retranslating and annotating” the Bible, to find commonalities with socialism and establish a “correct understanding” of the text.

            “Ten years ago, we used to be able to say the party was not really interested in what people believed internally,” said Pils (professor of law at King’s College London, focusing on human rights). “Xi Jinping’s response is much more invasive and it is in some ways returning to Mao-era attempts to control hearts and minds.”

          • Matt M says:

            So you’re saying Islam is trendy now the same way Buddhism was in the ’90s?

            Not practicing it necessary, but “publicly and visibly caring about the plight of the Uighur Muslims in China” is trendy now in the same way that “publicly caring about the plight of Tibetan Buddhists” was in the 90s, absolutely…

          • Aapje says:

            I think that caring about religious freedom is very non-trendy in blue tribe, atheist or nigh-atheist circles, with concern about Muslims being based primarily on the impression that they are targeted for their ethnicity, rather than religion.

        • Randy M says:

          I think “neoliberalism” is pro-China in as much as you can’t be pro-Globalism without getting entangled with the Chinese economy, and you can’t do that without being somewhat deferential to the Chinese government.
          To the right of that is “what about poor Americans?” and to the left of that is “What about minorities/poor in China?”

          As a religious conservative, I used to hear a lot of denunciation of China’s “One Child” policy. I think this has become less salient as their birthrates have fallen with modernization and the enforcement has become less strict.

        • Guy in TN says:

          For those of you who do lean more left wing… is supporting China a left wing stance?

          I can’t speak for a political movement as a whole, but the general left-position is that the US government cannot be trusted, is a bad actor on the global stage, and is currently ran by racists, nationalists, imperialists, and war profiteers of various stripes.

          So the question isn’t really “are you pro-China?”, but rather “do you support the current the rhetorical ramp-up that has the US going to war with China as its implied conclusion?”

          Just like people who opposed the war with Iraq must necessarily have been “pro-Saddam”, people who oppose escalating tensions with China must now be “pro-China”.

          This upcoming war, like almost all the US wars before it, is one of choice, that must necessarily be draped in the cloak of inevitability and “self defense” for popular consumption.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            general left-position

            Not sure, but I don’t think left-wing and leftist can be treated interchangeably as you seem to be doing here.

            I think you mean “leftist” or “Socialist left” and the prompt just means everyone left of center.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I didn’t realize there was a distinction to be made between “left-wing” and “leftist”? I’ve always used the terms to apply to the same group. As in: “a leftist is someone who occupies the left-wing position”.

            But yeah, my comment does not apply to the more liberal-centrists like Biden or Clinton types. I saw just yesterday that Biden cut an ad arguing that Trump is being soft on China, arguing that Biden would be the real hawk.

          • herbert herberson says:

            I agree with HeelBearClub. Left-wing includes left-liberals, but I read “leftist” as a catchall term for everything to the left of them–assorted and sundry anarchists, socialists, and communists.

          • Skeptic says:

            That’s..not really an accurate take on ‘the consensus’ as it pertains to foreign policy.

            Foreign policy in the US has recently been a completely bipartisan Wilsonian Doctrine affair, with the differences between Dems and Reps essentially boiling down to intra-party debates about the best method of achieving the shared Wilsonian Idealist outcome. Most of them are trivial to the point of absurd (R2P vs pre-emptive overthrow, anyone?)

            In that sense it’s certainly not racist or nationalist, although one could interpret the Wilsonian Doctrine ‘make the world safe for democracy’ as a form of cultural imperialism.

            I think a better descriptor for Wilsonian foreign policy (and one that lies outside the culture war) is Insane.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Guy in TN:
            Admittedly, usage is always fluid.

            But the most typical use, at least in my estimation, is something like the canonical one.

            The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained: “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp”.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            HeelBearClub

            Hey guys! I’m popular!

          • Guy in TN says:

            Can you provide links to anyone who is supporting going to war with China? Where on earth have you been watching, hearing, reading anything that even implies war let alone calls for it overtly?

            If China is “responsible” for the Coronavirus outbreak, that means that they are “responsible” for >50,000 American deaths. “Responsible for killing Americans” is the phrasing we might use had they fired a rocket at Los Angeles.

            When people talk about “holding China accountable” for these deaths, what do you think that implies? What would we do, in a typical generic circumstance, where a foreign power kills >50,000 US civilians? The rhetorical groundwork being laid is so plain, I don’t see how one could miss it.

            But if you want “an example”: Just a few weeks ago I was debating with someone who described his position as “supports peace, but does not find it plausible a the time being“, as if war was just something that manifest from invisible outside forces, beyond our will.

            This could all blow over of course, if the US decides to direct its attention to some other bugaboo. As recently as January it looked like we were on the brink of war with Iran, and before that it was Venezuela. So no I offer no predictions on what the future holds, only that the current rhetorical trajectory is “bad”.

          • matkoniecz says:

            @Guy in TN

            “directly murders N people in act of warfare”

            and

            “due to less than ideal competence + coverup + censorship natural disaster goes out of control and kills N people”

            are generally considered as significantly different.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I just have a hard time buying the “no one actually wants war” line from a country that’s currently dropping bombs in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and others too numerous to mention. With every last one being a war of choice.

            Clearly someone wants war. And it’s not unreasonable to think that an administration that’s been picking fights with (in just the past three years) Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran, might not be interested in doing a sudden 180 towards international peace for the country it claims is “responsible for killing Americans”.

          • Lambert says:

            Those places aren’t neer peers.

            China’s able to do orders of magnitude more damage to the US than Ba’ath or Iran or any of the lesser powers in the region.

        • Milo Minderbinder says:

          What do you mean, “support China?”

          My impression was that pre-Trump the view breakdown was:

          Cultural Right: The Chinese are godless communists whose human rights abuses make the offshoring of American jobs and theft of American IP deeply troubling.

          Neoliberal/”Business Right”: Chinese human rights abuses are troubling but exposure to Western values via trade and cultural exchange will ultimately smooth out these rough edges. Our superior culture will of course win out in the end. Plus, a lot of the Cultural Right stuff sounds “Yellow peril-y”

          Traditional Leftist: Complaints against China are overblown, yet another example of Western Imperialists singling out a communist country. Plus, more emphasis on the racism of the right-wing criticisms.

          Nowadays, the neoliberal position has definitely moved towards what was previously the cultural right, as fears of technological superiority and doubts of the persuasiveness of Western culture have begun to sink in. On the left there’s more recognition of Chinese human rights abuses that I’ve seen. The nuance I see today is the level of concern for the welfare of the average Chinese person in all of this, condemnation of the CCP is pretty widespread these days.

        • Loriot says:

          Trump’s hostility to China has made things pretty awkward because now we have to say “China is a problem but Trump is going about it in the worst possible way”, and nuanced arguments are heavily selected against in the sphere of politics.

      • Gerry Quinn says:

        How can you tell? I would think that SSC would generally be read by opinionated types who would have their own piece to say.

        Is this the new version of “The Lurkers support me”?

        • HeelBearCub says:

          The SSC survey results, and Scott’s reference thereof, is what is being used to categorize the readership. Most people don’t comment. I imagine many, even lots, even most, of the readers don’t even read the comments (did Scott ask this on the survey?), let alone make comments.

          In any case, the data exists in the survey to be able to look at how self-selected political lean changes as self-identified comment frequency increases. I believe Scott actually analyzed that in 2019, or maybe some other commenter.

          • acymetric says:

            I could be completely wrong, but I believe it was “Dan L” who did that analysis. I can’t remember if I’ve seen him comment recently.

            Edit: On second thought, maybe there was no space and it was “DanL”. Can’t remember.

    • EchoChaos says:

      We know, uncontroversially know because it is the official line of the CCP, that they denied a bunch of cases in January and February that they later added to the total in order to make themselves look better.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/chinas-wuhan-revises-coronavirus-case-count-death-toll-state-media.html

      How is that done with a maximum of transparency?

      • Statismagician says:

        What that link says, as far as I can tell, is that they revised their counts because they’d gotten incomplete figures from data source institutions and because they’d corrected some mistakes. How true or complete that is I don’t know, but it’s entirely plausible and we’re doing exactly the same thing here in the U.S. Malice not necessary where garden-variety overwork/lack of hypercompetence will suffice.

        • EchoChaos says:

          I am aware that is the party line. So either they are so incompetent that they missed a full third of the deaths in Wuhan (which belies that they responded competently) or they were hiding things. Given that they actively silenced whistleblowers, I know which way my bet is, but admit a bias against the CCP.

          • knzhou says:

            Last week, NYC revised their death counts upward by 3700, i.e. they stated that they had missed a full third of the deaths. When things get bad, keeping an accurate count is hard.

          • Statismagician says:

            I think the small absolute scale and compressed timeline of this are distorting perceptions of what counts as competent response. We’re talking about an error of 1,290 people corrected over, what, 2-3 months? Note ‘over,’ not ‘after,’ because they probably had to do a substantially shoe-leather investigation of an 11-million-person city and those take time. If our own numbers don’t have to be revised similarly I’ll be shocked, it’s just the nature of the beast.

            EDIT: Yeah, that.

          • Anonymous Bosch says:

            The difference in NYC is we already knew it was an undercount, thanks to open records and a free press.

          • Statismagician says:

            Everybody with any kind of expertise knew that about Wuhan, too. I don’t read Chinese so I can’t tell you what their press was saying, but ‘probably an undercount’ appearing in the paper is not what makes it true.

          • A1987dM says:

            FWIW, even the Italian official death count is most likely underestimated by at least a factor of two, given the difference between the total mortality rate in 2020 Q1 vs 2019 (or 2018, etc.) Q1.

    • Anonymous Bosch says:

      There was no cover-up beyond a four-day delay at around Christmas, well within margins of error of skittish officials thinking that doctors were seeing things in the middle of flu season. The COVID outbreak was front page news in East Asia by Jan 1st, and experts from all over the world were in Wuhan by the first week of January. Everything was done with the maximum of speed, transparency, and professionalism humanly possible. That is indisputable to anyone who has been watching the outbreak since day one.

      Li Wenliang was summoned by the police and made to sign his “apology” on January 3. Among the peace-disturbing allegations he was made to recant was the advice that his readers take precautions against contagion, which was at odds with China insisting up until January 20 that they had no evidence of human-to-human transmission (and then within two days of admitting it, putting one of their largest cities under an unprecedented lockdown, an awfully fast jump in knowledge from “no transmission” to “shut it down”).

      Saying “experts from all over the world were in Wuhan” sounds like a flat lie, although this shilling sounds practiced enough that I’m sure there’s some tendentious interpretation of it. Perhaps in the sense that doctors working for the Wuhan hospitals came from various places, but certainly I didn’t see any independent experts being let into Wuhan until well into the lockdown.

      And these are just inferable from the public record. There are numerous other accounts from anonymous whistleblowers that in early January they were instructed to destroy samples and keep quiet.

      I think the evidence is clear that China was either directing a cover-up or half-assing their supervision of local officials directing a cover-up, then switched gears once that became unsustainable.

    • matkoniecz says:

      China bears not one iota of responsibility

      They bear 100% of responsibility for coverup, censorship and lies that were clearly happening at begininng. And their political system encouraged this.

      Not sure how much of coverup, censorship and lies happened later, but at early crucial stage it is clearly confirmed that it happened.

      Everything was done with the maximum of speed, transparency, and professionalism humanly possible.

      This is untrue. Initial coverup and censorship was an opposite of transparency.

    • Edward Scizorhands says:

      If you think there’s a popular misconception that’s wrong, you should put in the work to show why things people believe, like China jailing people who spoke about the virus, or kicking out foreign journalists, or WHO saying on January 14 that there was no person-to-person transmission despite, or China kept on demurring on offers for outside assistance, are incorrect.

      • knzhou says:

        > WHO saying on January 14 that there was no person-to-person transmission

        This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying there probably is person-to-person transmission, and a bunch saying that specific studies haven’t yet found *hard evidence* for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.

        > China kept on demurring on offers for outside assistance

        When the first cluster in Washington sprung up, how do you think Americans would have responded if the CCP generously offered to put boots on the ground in Washington to coordinate our response for us? Do you think a single politician in the country would have reacted to that positively? Obviously not; now you know why the reverse is true.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January.

          https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3AWHO%20until%3A2020-01-15%20since%3A2020-01-01%20coronavirus&src=typed_query&f=live

          What follows is not a full list, but things that are generally in the category of information or advice:

          Jan 9
          Some coronaviruses cause less-severe disease, some more severe. Some transmit easily from person to person, while others don’t.

          Jan 9
          Novel coronaviruses emerge periodically, as we have seen. SARS emerged in 2002 and MERS emerged in 2012.
          Several known coronaviruses are currently circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

          Jan 9
          Protect yourself & reduce risk from #coronavirus infection:
          👏🏽Hand hygiene
          Sneezing faceCover mouth & nose when coughing & sneezing
          Cut of meatThoroughly cook meat & eggs
          🌡Avoid close contact with anyone with respiratory illness
          Cross mark Avoid close contact with wild or live farm animals

          Jan 10
          WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travellers to and from Wuhan,#ChinaFlag of China

          It is generally considered that entry screening offers little benefit, while requiring considerable resources LINK #coronavirus

          Jan 10
          WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on #China based on the information currently available LINK

          Jan 11
          WHO is providing information to countries on how to prepare for the new #coronavirus, incl. how to:
          🌡 monitor for sick people
          Microscope test samples
          Stethoscope treat patients
          Hospital control infection in health centres
          Adhesive bandage maintain the right supplies
          🗣 communicate with the public about the virus

          Jan 11
          BREAKING: WHO has received the genetic sequences for the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from the Chinese authorities. We expect them to be made publicly available as soon as possible.

          Jan 11
          WHO thanks the Chinese authorities for their commitment to sharing information on the novel #coronavirus (2019-nC0V) as they continue intensive surveillance and follow-up measures, including environmental investigations in #ChinaFlag of China

          Jan 11
          WHO encourages all countries to continue preparedness activities, and has issued interim guidance on how to do this.

          #coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

          Jan 11
          Whole genome sequences for the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from the ChineseFlag of China authorities were shared with WHO and have also been submitted by Chinese authorities to the GISAID platform so that they can be accessed by public health authorities, laboratories and researchers.

          Jan 12
          On 11 and 12 January 2020, WHO received further detailed information from the #ChinaFlag of China National Health Commission about the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak LINK

          That links says:

          The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission

          Jan 12
          The evidence is highly suggestive that the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak is associated with exposures in a seafood market in #Wuhan, #ChinaFlag of China.
          The market was closed on 1 January 2020 LINK

          Jan 13
          WHO is working with officials in #ThailandFlag of Thailand and #ChinaFlag of China following reports of confirmation of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in a traveler from #Wuhan, China, who traveled to Thailand

          Jan 13
          The possibility of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) cases being identified in countries other than #ChinaFlag of China was not unexpected, and reinforces why WHO calls for on-going active monitoring and preparedness in other countries. LINK

          From link:

          The possibility of cases being identified in other countries was not unexpected and reinforces why WHO calls for on-going active monitoring and preparedness in other countries. WHO has issued guidance on how to detect and treat persons ill with the new virus.

          Oh, it not unexpected? Thanks!

          Jan 14
          Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #ChinaFlag of China.

          Jan 14
          Replying to
          @mattrbo
          @mattrbo
          Hi Matt, there has been no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
          However, such transmission is always a concern when patients have respiratory symptoms – this requires further investigation.

          [above tweet repeated to about 10 other people]

          Jan 14
          On 13 January 2020, the Flag of Thailand#Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health
          @pr_moph
          reported the first imported case of lab-confirmed novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from #Wuhan, #ChinaFlag of China LINK

          From LINK

          As the traveler did not report having visited the market linked to most of the other cases, it is vital that investigations continue to identify the source of infection. To date, China has not reported any cases of infection among healthcare workers or contacts of the cases. Based on the available information there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020 in China.

          Additional investigation is needed to ascertain the presence of human-to-human transmission, modes of transmission, common source of exposure and the presence of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases that are undetected. It is critical to review all available information to fully understand the potential transmissibility among humans.

          When cases started showing up in other countries, WHO said “of course we were always worried about this,” but I’m not sure of the other times they were worried about it. Maybe it’s like Trump saying he knew it was always a pandemic.

          By the way, I haven’t excused the Western countries, at all, for sitting on their hands. Even with the great wall of bullshit that China put out, there was still the entire month of February to act, and few did anything.

          • knzhou says:

            Okay, so this is one week of messages from an extremely early stage — at the point where Chinese scientists have only just shown that a new virus exists. And as I said, even at this early stage, there isn’t a single tweet that’s wrong. It was completely true that all coronaviruses are different, completely true that they didn’t have hard evidence of human-to-human transmission, completely true that all nations should be prepared, and completely true that more information was needed.

            What exactly are you complaining about? Should the WHO have demanded all international flights stop on January 9? If you think this is a reasonable step, note that new diseases and mysterious outbreaks occur all the time, to the tune of several per month globally. (You can try to keep up with the firehose here.) If their response was on that much of a hair-trigger, international travel would literally never be allowed.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            What exactly are you complaining about?

            You wanted me to look at that week of messages. I did.

            They have a bunch of statements saying there probably is person-to-person transmission, and a bunch saying that specific studies haven’t yet found *hard evidence* for person-to-person transmission

            emphasis added

            When I see this, I’m expecting to see something along the lines of “human-to-human transmission is possible, but we haven’t proven it yet.” Instead, I see them saying that all evidence is that there is no such thing as human-to-human transmission, although one tweet a week earlier said it’s possible for coronaviruses to either be one or the other.

            It all feels like talking with Trump supporters who think that Trump saying “maybe it’s inevitable, maybe it isn’t” as identical to him saying it’s inevitable.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          (reply to edit)

          how do you think Americans would have responded if the CCP generously offered to put boots on the ground in Washington to coordinate our response for us? Do you think a single politician in the country would have reacted to that positively? Obviously not; now you know why the reverse is true.

          https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/cdc-coronavirus-china.html

          Normally, teams from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service can be in the air within 24 hours.

          But no invitation has come — and no one can publicly explain why.

          The World Health Organization, which made a similar offer about two weeks ago, appears to be facing the same cold shoulder, though a spokeswoman said it is just “sorting out arrangements.”

          Current and former public health officials and diplomats, speaking anonymously for fear of upsetting diplomatic relations, said they believe the reluctance comes from China’s top leaders, who do not want the world to think they need outside help.

          China had “agreed to a mission of international experts” to better understand disease transmission and clinical severity, Dr. Michael Ryan, the W.H.O’s emergency response chief, said at the time.

          Asked if that team would include American experts, Dr. Tedros replied that “best would be a bilateral arrangement.”

          On Thursday, a W.H.O. spokeswoman said that there was no delay in the organization’s own mission to China.

          “Our understanding is that the mission is on,” Marcia Poole, the spokeswoman, said. But she could not say when the team would leave or who would be on it.

    • knzhou says:

      Completely agreed. I’ve been following this since it was front-page news in English-language Asian newspapers back in early January. The speed with which China and the WHO reacted was not perfect, but it was pretty damn good. They were able to (1) discover that a new respiratory illness had appeared, in the middle of a bad flu season, (2) identify the virus, (3) develop tests for it, (4) set up mass contact tracing and testing from scratch, (5) test enough to conclude that there was a big problem, and (6) implement the most visible and draconian containment measures ever taken in any nation. All of this took place in a few weeks in January, and all of these steps were completely public, in the sense that I, an ordinary person, could read about them in the newspaper as they happened. For contrast, here in the US we got stuck for a few weeks solely on step (3), despite having far more information!

      I would have thought this would have been warning enough, but then I had to sit through two months of the Western world doing nothing, and then coming around to overwhelming consensus that this all happened because China covered it up. If declaring a global health emergency, finding and sharing the genetic sequence of the virus, publishing absolutely enormous case and fatality numbers, and performing a gigantic lockdown in January is a coverup, then what exactly is supposed to be transparency?!

      • matkoniecz says:

        and all of these steps were completely public

        after they finished coverup, censorship and threatening doctor who was first to notice it

        • knzhou says:

          I mean, if you actually dig a bit deeper into the story there, Li Wenliang had no expertise in the field, was going off very little information, and was sending out mass messages saying that SARS had returned (which was absolutely not true; SARS is far worse, with 25x the mortality rate of COVID-19), which would have incited completely panic.

          Yes, in hindsight they should have listened to him, and back in January I was pissed off about this because it set China’s response back by about a week, but these days a week of wasted time sounds like an excellent performance compared to almost every other country.

          It’s not about the political system. Imagine an American eye doctor posting on Facebook that Ebola was going around in NYC. They would definitely face immediate professional consequences — probably more than Li Wenliang did. My impression is that the full extent of the consequences he experienced was a stern talking to by the police, which is what you get here when pulled over for speeding.

          • matkoniecz says:

            “and all of these steps were completely public”, “China bears not one iota of responsibility”, “bullcrap media narrative that the WHO and China downplayed the outbreak in any way” are clearly untrue.

            There is sadly plenty of space to praise China and make fun of USA/Europe. But starting from absolutely ridiculous and easy to demonstrate as false claims seems weird.

            I mean, if you actually dig a bit deeper into the story there

            Maybe, but I will ignore it for now until it gets confirmed by someone credible or by good quality sources. Your “all of these steps were completely public” was misleading at best (by conveniently ignoring earlier censorship, coverup and lies and by later defining “completely public” in a weird way).

            messages saying that SARS had returned (which was absolutely not true; SARS is far worse, with 25x the mortality rate of COVID-19)

            For your info SARS is caused by SARS-Cov-1, COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2. Both are variants of SARS-CoV strain.

            Not sure whatever he managed it by accident, but “which was absolutely not true” seems way too strong. (I am less sure here)

            Imagine an American eye doctor posting on Facebook that Ebola was going around in NYC. They would definitely face immediate professional consequences — probably more than Li Wenliang did.

            Also if it would be based on observing actually happening cases and discovering later that it was not standard Ebola but an also deadly and dangerous Ebola variant?

          • Anonymous Bosch says:

            I mean, if you actually dig a bit deeper into the story there, Li Wenliang had no expertise in the field, was going off very little information, and was sending out mass messages saying that SARS had returned (which was absolutely not true; SARS is far worse, with 25x the mortality rate of COVID-19), which would have incited completely panic.

            I’m not sure what in this paragraph is supposed to make me go “ah yes, clearly they did the right thing.”

            Imagine an American eye doctor posting on Facebook that Ebola was going around in NYC

            In a situation where it isn’t actually Ebola going around NYC but a novel filovirus that causes similar hemorrhagic fevers in a less-virulent, more-contagious form? While the authorities claim it’s just a bunch of bad seafood for three weeks? Okay well, we can give him a gold-plated metal instead of a solid gold one.

          • Ouroborobot says:

            I can imagine an American doctor facing professional or even legal consequences for it. I can’t imagine an american doctor being hauled in and threatened by the secret police of the ruling communist dictatorship for it. That seems very much about the political system, since I think it’s fair to observe that those sort of tactics are seen far more frequently under some systems than under others.

    • Statismagician says:

      I think that nobody can possibly know, at this stage, who bears how much responsibility for which parts of whatever the result of all this turns out to have been. Assignment of blame, in either direction, is entirely premature and deeply irresponsible and I wish we’d all stop trying to do it until something at least vaguely resembling the full facts are in.

      • Conrad Honcho says:

        I strongly agree with this. I would much prefer to save the postmortem for the post part of the mortem.

      • Andrew says:

        I don’t think anything resembling full facts will ever come in. At least, not in a way that ever allows anybody of import to usefully assign blame.

        Propaganda machines are already spinning to deflect blame from their hosts and they aren’t going to stop so that we can do a dispassionate analysis in a year. If anything, time and distance will only make the propaganda more effective.

        The reality is that most countries failed in ways ranging from the inadequate to the horrifying, but give it 5 years and everybody will think that their country/party/tribe heroically did what they could, and blame lies primarily on some outgroup.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        We cannot make precise statements now, but pacificverse asserts an upper bound and we can reject that with a much higher lower bound. We can say that today, so we should say that today.

        As more information comes in, we will learn that people had information earlier and they will look worse for not acting on it. It is unlikely that people will look better in the future.

        • pacificverse says:

          My assertation is a middle/lower bound.
          The upperbound is that the Chinese response was frickkin perfect, that the Chinese system worked perfectly, and that no other government would have the guts to quarantine a city of eleven million and a province the size of Britain for the first time in a century in response to a few thousand pneumonias in the middle of a major holiday. If the outbreak had occured anywhere except China, the first outbreak would have been exactly like Italy’s – i.e. splashing across the rest of the world with hundreds of exported cases/country per day within two weeks and overwhelming contact tracing within fifteen days, causing loss of containment immediately.

          China bought the world a month of prep time (fact). Should the world not be paying China instead? (Opinion)

          This is an upper bound.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            When I say an “upper bound,” I mean an upper bound on error.

            You claim an upper bound of at most 4 days of error. The lower bound is that we know China lied for at least 3 weeks. By a “lower bound” I mean “at least”; maybe the true period of time was longer or maybe the lies were worse than I currently estimate, let alone know.

            If you just want to say that China did better than western countries, you could say that, but you didn’t. Instead you made absolute claims. Britain’s errors and Trump’s lies have no bearing on assessing your claims. We know that they are false and we should say that today.

          • Evan Þ says:

            Except that nCOV2 started quietly spreading in Washington State as early as January 15th, eight days before the Wuhan quarantine. Exactly what month did China buy the world?

          • pacificverse says:

            China did not lie for three weeks. Local officials, at most, waited a week to sound the alarm.
            First detected imported case in Seattle was Jan 21, well after the WHO told people to watch out. Jan 14 was the day interpersonal spread was confirmed
            Seattle missed one guy, and did not test or trace as aggressively as it should’ve.
            https://www.scmp.com/topics/coronavirus-china
            Scroll to the bottom to see reporting from January. It’s all there.
            These are very narrow margins for defeat. If health authorities in Seattle had been more vigilant (since test kits were available by the 21st), and tested a few weird pneumonias just to be sure, Seattle could have contained its outbreak. Medium case, Seattle turns into another Wuhan, and gets locked down and quarantined, and everyone goes back to contact tracing.

            And silent spread in Seattle with a few dozen cases =/= major outbreak of current magnitude. Remember NY in mid-March, after the Italians spread the virus to the East Coast? Imagine the outbreak blowing up to fill hospitals in early February instead, with no prep time to mass-produce test kits, stock up on face masks, toilet paper etc, etc… oh wait! Everyone wasted the prep time.

            Hence one month of time bought.

          • matkoniecz says:

            Local officials, at most, waited a week to sound the alarm.

            The lied and hold coverup for at least one week. Maybe other doctor was successfully threatened/disappeared and we don’t know about it?

            We know about this coverup only because it failed.

            And this initial period was the most important, maybe it was still possible to extinguish it completely. Maybe system more concerned about people than presenting regime in a good light would detect human-to-human transmission much earlier.

            China government is not incompetent here, it is possible that coverup was far longer and is still not revealed.

            You are still trying, for some reason, to manipulate facts. “there is a confirmed one-week long coverup” is a lower boundary for how long China lied. Not an upper limit.

    • Randy M says:

      Well, this is as good a place as any to ask this: Is it true that there is a virology lab in Wuhan? Is this in any way unusual? Would you place odds that this had anything to do with the pandemic beginning in in Wuhan, or is the wet market theory much more plausible?

      I know this comes of as “just asking questions” and I could probably do the research myself. I’m not entirely confident in my ability to wade through various levels of disinformation likely spread around the subject and honestly have no strong opinion yet, though I’d say if true, I’d be skeptical of the coincidence.

      • Statismagician says:

        Wuhan is ~half again as large as NYC, with 35 universities on top of significant biotech and government activity. It would be shocking if there weren’t.

        • Randy M says:

          That’s a good example of relevant information I could have found googling, thanks.

          • Randy M says:

            Of course, if a new epidemic came out of New York, I’d put a non-zero chance at is being accidentally released from a lab, too.

        • Nick says:

          …The perhaps more relevant metric is that it’s a Biosafety Level 4 lab, the only one of its kind in China, and the only level allowed to work on the really dangerous stuff like SARS. You might have thought to mention that!

        • EchoChaos says:

          Note that this is true, relatively unsurprising (China has a billion people after all) and a little bit misleading. US cities tend to be smaller because we have suburbs that are officially different cities, which is why “metro area” exists as well.

          Wuhan would be the largest city in America, but the “Wuhan Metro area” would be the third largest, behind New York/Newark and LA/Long Beach, just ahead of Chicago.

          • keaswaran says:

            And just to follow up (partly for my own edification), here are Chinese urban areas and American urban areas interleaved (population in millions):

            Shanghai: 28.2
            Shenzhen: 21.7
            Guangzhou: 21.0
            Beijing: 19.2
            New York: 18.4
            Wuhan: 12.6
            Los Angeles: 12.2
            Tianjin: 11.6
            Chengdu: 11.3
            Chongqing: 11.1
            Hangzhou: 9.3
            Chicago: 8.6
            Nanjing: 8.3

          • EchoChaos says:

            @keaswaran

            Slightly different numbers than I found (which had LA just above Wuhan, not just below), but more thorough, so I’ll just say thanks a lot for the effort!

      • Anonymous Bosch says:

        Would you place odds that this had anything to do with the pandemic beginning in in Wuhan, or is the wet market theory much more plausible?

        The wet market theory is just vastly more plausible for several reasons.
        1. That’s where the first big cluster of cases was
        2. It’s how a bunch of other zoonotic viruses jumped in the past
        3. The genetic structure indicates natural selection (via optimization during low-grade transmission)

        I think its pretty much exactly like SARS-1 but with pangolins playing the role of civets. According to the Nature article, the bat coronavirus commonly cited by proponents of the lab theory diverges from SARS-2 in the spike proteins, which are important for breaking into cells, and those are more similar to pangolins. So while nothing is certain yet, there’s a pretty well-told tale involving a virus jumping from bats to adorable mammal, picking up some nice virulent proteins there, then jumping from adorable mammal to humans at some god-awful wildlife market.

        • Nick says:

          As someone who followed the argument over the lab theory for a little while, +1. IMO what clinches it is point 3, at least based on the many experts who weighed in to say so.

          • John Schilling says:

            I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk on that point. Outside of the paranoid fringe, the theory is that Wuhan was studying a novel coronavirus they found in the wild and accidentally released it into a densely-populated city, not that they genetically engineered it for nefarious purposes. This is plausible but probably cannot be proven or disproven at this point.

            And, more importantly, is irrelevant at this point. Sick bat brought into Wuhan by someone who wanted to sell it at a wet market, sick bat brought into Wuhan by someone who wanted to study it in the lab, doesn’t matter. If we really want, we can go all Bayesian and figure that the wet market gets lots more bats but the virology lab selects for the sickest ones and brings them in from all over China, then factor differences in lab vs market handling practices, but it won’t help deal with the problem we’ve got now.

          • Nick says:

            @John Schilling
            Huh, the theory I initially heard was that they were genetically engineering variants for benign purposes, not malign, the same way as other labs like this do, and it accidentally got out. Three facts had me interested: a) it’s the only lab of its kind in China, b) labs of this kind make viruses like that, and c) China has had accidents at other labs. And 3 refutes this theory because of b, i.e., the lab very likely didn’t make this, because it looks to have been natural. I hadn’t heard the theory that it was a naturally occurring one; that does sound more plausible, and I feel dumb it didn’t occur to me. I suppose you’re right that we’ll never know.

            I agree that it’s irrelevant for how to deal with the virus, but there are other situations where it matters.

          • zardoz says:

            There’s a standard technique for evolving viruses in the lab called passaging.

    • Erusian says:

      Everything was done with the maximum of speed, transparency, and professionalism humanly possible. That is indisputable to anyone who has been watching the outbreak since day one.

      Considering the Chinese government is one of the most opaque governments in the world, I doubt it’s reasonable to say anything is indisputable. Perhaps it is if you believe the Chinese government but that’s not a terribly smart thing to do. Something the Chinese people themselves will tell you, by the way. This is the wages of dictatorship and a lack of transparency: we can’t trust what they’re saying even if (and that’s a huge if) they’re telling the truth.

      China bears not one iota of responsibility. It made a maximum effort, and held up its end of the bargain.

      Why did China purge the front line party members responsible then? The Wuhan party underwent a major purge in the aftermath of its response. There were some news stories saying Xi Jing Ping wanted Wuhan to thank him for his handling of coronavirus. This is a misread of the situation: Xi wanted to be thanked for having fixed the problem, the problem being the incompetent local party. Of course, this being Communist China, this was also a way to separate out the loyal from the disloyal and to force the survivors of the purge to ritually reaffirm the firings and disappearances were justified. But more to the point: if the Chinese narrative is that mistakes were made at the local level, why are you arguing that not even that happened?

      Too many bad memories from the Opium Wars.

      No one alive today remembers the Opium Wars. In fact, no one’s grandparents knew anyone who remembered the Opium Wars. Why is it that the Opium Wars loom large in the national consciousness? It’s because the Chinese Communist Party controls the education system and has chosen to emphasize a sense of siege by the west and xenophobia. At one point the supposedly incorruptible Lin Zexu illegally arrested Chinese merchants and threatened to execute them unless they paid him. There were pro-western Chinese and pro-Chinese westerners. Indeed, the initial conflict of the first Opium War was the Chinese attempting to intervene militarily to protect some of these pro-Chinese western merchants. All these details are glossed over into an easy narrative about Chinese victimization.

      If the American body politic is so foolish to go through with this lunacy, there is a substantial risk of China taking a hard right turn into xenophobic fascist territory.

      Would you accept this argument in reverse? That China needs to treat the United States better or there’s a significant risk that Trump is just the beginning of the US renegotiating the East Asian order against China? I doubt it. This is a demand for appeasement: if we treat the Chinese government nicely enough and give them what they want they’ll leave us alone. Yet even that isn’t true: during the high water mark there was a lot of spying and mercantilism going on

      Trust me that defending the Chinese government is not where you want to be. The Chinese government will not appreciate it and, more importantly, it’s not worth defending.

      • demost says:

        This is the wages of dictatorship and a lack of transparency: we can’t trust what they’re saying even if (and that’s a huge if) they’re telling the truth.

        I agree that this is an important point, and I have heard a narrative that gives it an interesting twist. It’s not just that an outsider can’t trust the Chinese government, but that the central Chinese government cannot trust reports from local governments.

        For the current epidemics (so the narrative goes) this causes severe trouble to the central Chinese government. Whatever goals they pursue, fighting the virus or covering up (choose whatever your information and ideology suggest), they would like to have very precise real information about the status of the epidemics, and also of the economic situation. However, local government are not used to (and may not want) giving them truthful information, and the central government is having a much harder time finding the right opening strategy because of this lack of trustworthiness.

        The stories that went to the headlines was that central government tries to measure economic status by energy consumption, but some local government try to occlude the true status by just forcing companies to consume energy, letting machines run in idle mode.

        I am not sure whether I should believe the narrative for this particular situation, i.e. whether it is impairing the intelligence of the central government about the corona crisis. But from a more general perspective, I do tend to believe it. I have spoken with people from Eastern Europe, and they told me that this was a heck of a problem in communist countries. I do know that China has a ubitiquous intelligence and surveillance program, but so did the communist countries, and apparently that helped, but it was not enough to solve the problem.

        For me, I made a quite significant update about my model on how efficient and capable a Chinese-type government can be, since this sounds like a pretty severe and intrinsic limitation that comes from controlling the press and suppressing opposition. If you can’t trust the numbers you get from your own officials, you may still be able to get the general picture right, but it makes it really hard to fine-tune your politics (as you would like to do in a pandemic where every single case can cause huge trouble if not followed properly). And the problem is not limited to the level “central government vs. local government”, you have the same problem on all levels of your hierarchy.

        Perhaps all this is obvious to people who have thought more about politics and political systems, but it wasn’t obvious to me. And I would really like to hear the account of people who are more familiar with China.

        • Erusian says:

          The idea of Chinese efficiency is not believed at all within China itself. The government’s quasi-official line (what a non-political person who likes Xi would argue) is that this is the local Wuhan Party’s fault and Xi came and cleaned it up after their failure.

          • demost says:

            The idea of Chinese efficiency is not believed at all within China itself.

            Hm, I have a quite different impression. Perhaps that is because many discussions do not discriminate between speed and efficiency. But most people I read seem to agree that China is much more efficient because they need to care less about opinions of local protesters etc. I don’t know too many people from China, but they few that I know seem to agree in that point.

            I know this quasi-official line. But I don’t think that this is very informative. It is just what I expected to hear regardless of whether it is true or not.

          • fibio says:

            But most people I read seem to agree that China is much more efficient because they need to care less about opinions of local protesters etc.

            I’m not denying that people think this but this seems like a false equivalence. Lack of feedback from the ground means that the government is more active and can pour more resources into projects without interference. This does not mean they are more efficient, because that implies that performing the project was a good idea in the first place. Case in point, a large number of completely empty cities that have been built in China. America would never do that, they’d have far too many people screaming that it was a terrible idea to try (well, at least after the first city failed spectacularly to make any money).

          • Erusian says:

            Hm, I have a quite different impression. Perhaps that is because many discussions do not discriminate between speed and efficiency. But most people I read seem to agree that China is much more efficient because they need to care less about opinions of local protesters etc. I don’t know too many people from China, but they few that I know seem to agree in that point.

            This is what I’d expect a Chinese person who has some reason to tow the government line to say if they were in public and sober. In private, or drunk, they’ll admit there are deep flaws on the ground. Even the ones who are dedicated Communists will say as much. They just think it’s because of bad officials who need to be rooted out. They’ll articulate the ideal system as what China purports to have (as you say, no need to consult everyone) but point out on the ground, particularly among local cadres, the system is terribly marred by corruption and politicking. Which, you’ll note, is not an argument against the ideology but against its implementation.

          • Aapje says:

            I want to point out that the narrative that the higher government is wonderful and would make all the right decisions, but for the lower officials lying to them, is itself propaganda (not that it isn’t partially true, but only partially).

          • John Schilling says:

            Lower officials feeling it necessary or appropriate to lie to them, is proof enough that the higher government is far from perfect. That is in fact one of the most common failure modes for bad government.

          • demost says:

            This is what I’d expect a Chinese person who has some reason to tow the government line to say if they were in public and sober. In private, or drunk, they’ll admit there are deep flaws on the ground.

            This is true, but it seems like a red herring to me. When I speak to Chinese people at university, they are quite frank. For example, they have no problem saying that official numbers in China cannot be trusted, and that the government is lying all the time. But ask an average American how they perceive there own system, and of course they can list tons of things that are horribly broken. That’s true everywhere, so it’s not a strong indication for which system is most efficient. And I have not heard Chinese fellows telling me in private “Yeah, actually it’s not working well in China” on a general level.

            I think that a lot (probably most) Chinese believe that the Chinese political system is superior to Western systems, exactly because it’s more efficient. And so far I find it quite hard to find evidence for whether this is true or not. But perhaps it’s just too hard and unspecified a question to start with.

          • ana53294 says:

            I think that a lot (probably most) Chinese believe that the Chinese political system is superior to Western systems, exactly because it’s more efficient.

            Are you saying that, given an opportunity to legally emigrate to the US (say, a green card), most Chinese wouldn’t? Because that’s what would happen if they believed China is superior. There are plenty of jobs and opportunities to become rich in China. But rich Chinese people send their kids to the US, Canada, and Europe, not the other way around.

            I think that the Spanish political system is superior to China’s, which is one of the reasons why I would never go to China. Because I value my freedom and our political system, as deficient as it is.

          • demost says:

            Are you saying that, given an opportunity to legally emigrate to the US (say, a green card), most Chinese wouldn’t?

            This is exactly one of the things I would like to know. My intuition is that this is true (most Chinese wouldn’t), but I am not sure. For example, I don’t have the impression that a lot of successful Chinese entrepreneurs who can choose to live anywhere decide for other countries. (While this seems to be the case for other countries like Russia… a lot of Russian oligarchs live elsewhere.)

            It’s all availability heuristic, but that is the best I have got at the moment. And we all know that the opposite is also true: most Westerners would not leave their country to move to China if they had free option.

            I am not saying that I believe the Chinese system to be superior. After all, I started the thread saying that I find it MORE believable now that the opposite is true. My opinion before the update was that the best answer is both ways are true, depending on your objective function. Now I am more doubting and think that there might be more meaningful answers.

            But I do think that it is a quite hard question to decide. As I said before, I have the impression that most Westerner believe the Western system is superior, and most Chinese believe the Chinese system is superior.

      • knzhou says:

        Indeed, the initial conflict of the first Opium War was the Chinese attempting to intervene militarily to protect some of these pro-Chinese western merchants. All these details are glossed over into an easy narrative about Chinese victimization.

        To be honest, this sounds like the start of one of those specious arguments that the Civil War really had nothing to do with slavery, because blah blah complications blah blah both sides. Do actual historians agree with you?

        • Erusian says:

          Agree with me on what? I’m not arguing that China wasn’t exploited by European powers. (It was, though to a much lesser extent than many other nations.) Do actual historians agree with me about what? That China is using history to construct a revanchist narrative?

          Because the analogy here isn’t the Civil War having nothing to do with slavery. It’s that the Civil War wasn’t a race war, by pointing out that there was significant white support for abolitionism and this means it’s not accurate to see it as a conflict between blacks and whites.

      • ana53294 says:

        No one alive today remembers the Opium Wars.

        The Opium Wars happened within 30 years after the Napoleonic wars, which killed orders of magnitude more peole, AFAIU. Nobody hates the french because of Napoleon anymore; there are many more newer affronts. The emotional valence of the Opium Wars in China comes entirely from their school system; it happened so far back that equivalent conflicts in other places don’t generate the same level of acrimony.

        And China got Hong Kong back.

    • Two McMillion says:

      May the Communist Party of China burn, and may all other Communists burn with them.

      • Scott Alexander says:

        Please try to avoid wishing painful deaths on millions of people due to their political affiliations, even in jest. Consider this a warning – future offenses will result in bans.

    • Wrong Species says:

      prior to COVID, the WHO never ever used travel bans as a means of disease control.

      This is enough to erase any credibility they might have had. If you aren’t recommending travel restrictions against an epidemic epicenter with a highly contagious disease, there is something fundamentally broken about your reasoning process. Any moron can see that. Why couldn’t the “experts”?

      • HeelBearCub says:

        What’s the name for the syndrome where you forget about the Dunning-Kruger effect?

    • zoozoc says:

      China already is a xenophobic fascist territory. Recently several cities have forced all public shops to ban blacks from using the stores and are forcing blacks to quarantine in hotels at their expense. This is done even if those people have never left the country. Many other foreigners are also denied accessing many shops, but black people are being specifically target.

      Also, as others have said, you are completely wrong about most of your facts. The Wuhan lockdown came way too late and was done in such a way that millions of residence of Wuhan were able to leave the area before it occurred. The WHO was trumpeting CCP propaganda and downplaying the severity and need to institute any kind of safeguards against travel from the Wuhan area or China. Multiple doctors in the area noticed by mid to late December that some kind of new virus was spreading. Li Wenliang is the most well known but he was not alone. The CCP has arrested and disappeared anyone in China who spoke up against their handling of the incident or even recorded the measures being taken in Wuhan.

      • Kaitian says:

        Recently several cities have forced all public shops to ban blacks from using the stores and are forcing blacks to quarantine in hotels at their expense. This is done even if those people have never left the country.

        Could you post sources that this is widespread, that it’s official (city) policy, and that it’s targeting black people rather than specific African expat communities?

        One store deciding to ban Nigerians would still be bad. But it wouldn’t be much of a reason to call all of China fascist.

        • ana53294 says:

          Well of course it’s not official city policy. Why would they expose themselves like that, by putting their names on official pieces of paper? A policy doesn’t have to be official for it to work.

          And it’s not some African communities; it’s all Africans, although being African-American does make your life easier. But having a US passport almost always helps.

        • zoozoc says:

          Here is the first article I found by googling “blacks denied china shops”.

          https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-16/china-coronavirus-black-african-evictions

          It appears to primarily be one city, Guangzhou, in which blacks are specifically being targeted. So perhaps it is limited to only one, tier-1 city (discrimination specifically for being black). But I do know that in many places foreigners are not allowed at all into many shops just because they are foreigners.

          When I think of fascism, I think of two things. 1) extreme nationalism, which I think China definitely qualifies for and 2) tight coupling between business and the government, which also qualifies. It is a type of socialism where the businesses are not technically owned by the government, but all of the owners are CCP members or state officials, the government gives money to these businesses, and the government hands down mandates to the businesses.

    • Machine Interface says:

      Reminds me that a Chinese diplomat in France recently complained: “How can the west say we didn’t warn them? We put a city of 10 million people under quarantine. What more explicit of a warning do you want?”

      • Garrett says:

        This from the same country who sent tanks in to crush and shoot protesters en-mass? China either seems to provide responses which are either inconsequential or which are over-reactions.

    • Dear god… if SlateStarCodex readers believe the bullcrap media narrative that the WHO and China downplayed the outbreak in any way, Sino-American relations are doomed.

      “In any way”?

      Are you denying that Li Wenliang was summoned by the police and made to sign his “apology” on January 3?

      If that didn’t happen, perhaps you could explain the evidence that it did. If it did happen, then either you are exaggerating your claim or producing deliberately dishonest propaganda.

      It would be useful to the rest of us to know which, so as to know how seriously to take other things you say.

  38. AG says:

    Through some unknown magic, Mozart in his prime ends up in your care in the modern day (and you can somehow prevent him from immediately ODing from partying too hard). What music do you choose to expose him to?
    Do you ease him through the evolution of orchestral music?
    Do you dunk in him the deep end of synthesizers and modern genres?
    Do you spend more time exposing him to the traditional rhythms and instrumentation of non-European cultures?
    Do you think he would find certain lauded genres today dull? Perhaps he wouldn’t appreciate the less melodic subsets of, say, jazz, prog rock, or contemporary classical. On the opposite side, would he also be less than thrilled by more minimalist genres like contemplative singer/songwriter stuff, trap music, or mumblecore?
    Would you dare to just hand him your music player on shuffle?

    As I ruminated on this, I began thinking about applying these questions to other composers, and I realized that it would only be for Mozart and Haydn that I could want to play them all sorts of genres, as opposed to just showing them how classical music had developed.
    I’m not sure if Vivaldi would be game for modern genres. Bach is so much a genius of structure, I think that most everything would be beneath him, or at least not offer much of interest or to take home. And most of the great composers from Beethoven onwards also seem like they would be disappointed by how the other genres lag so far behind classical music in development, given how harshly they judged themselves.
    At best, they’d be impressed by how far instrumentation has come through synths, and and enjoy the music as purely a common consumer, guilty pleasure, “turning your brain off” stuff. At worst, they’d be mortified at how every genre has progressed, including that of classical. After all, every great composer has been strongly criticized by other composers of some standing and name, not to mention the inevitable critics crying that every transition period is the death knell for the medium.
    But when I seriously imagine trying to play any non-Classical piece for Beethoven, I just cannot visualize a positive reaction to the strength of the compositions. Perhaps some of the Russian composers would be amiable, especially The Five, considering how they liked to incorporate folk music melodies, but they too still had their pride in developing them into full Romantic masterpieces.

    In contrast, I have the impression that Mozart would find joy in music they way most poptimists do. His music was more melody-focused than the structure-focused Baroque Era he transitioned from, there was his notorious hedonism, and his love of dance. People have made comparisons of Mozart and Michael Jacksons’ upbringing, and it’s not hard to claim that Mozart might indeed have been a King of Pop in his day. His genius means that he likely wouldn’t deem certain music masterpieces the way we do, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t enjoy them nonetheless.
    Haydn’s history speaks for itself. He grew up in the late Baroque era, studied with one of the Bachs, befriended and somewhat mentored Mozart, and took Beethoven under his wing. He adapted his style through nearly three periods of classical music: Baroque, Classical, and the Late Classical as it transitioned towards Romantic, and was known for his “popular style,” incorporating lots of folk or folk-like music into the more rigorous classical music development and structures. (Much like Bernstein and Gershwin doing the same with jazz, or Copland’s Appalachian Spring.)

    Anyways, a preliminary list of music for the out-of-time Mozart:
    -Rhapsody in Blue (covers orchestral and jazz, good piano part)
    -Star Wars Main Theme (the pinnacle of maximalist orchestral)
    -The overture to Promises Promises. (Unconventional rhythms and maximalist orchestration in a pop setting)
    -West Side Story Symphonic Dances (introduction to latin rhythms, more unconventional phrasing, and melodic dissonance)
    -Jesus Christ Superstar (introduction to modern vocal styles, rock instrumentation)
    -Selections from Aretha Franklin and EW&F (soul, R&B, funk, amazing showboating non-opera vocals)
    -Pop and EDM: Something super maximalist electro, something tropical-house, something city pop. At least one Max Martin song. Gangnam Style, lol, considering Mozart’s sense of humor. Juice by Lizzo. Thriller by Michael Jackson. Don’t Hurt Yourself by Beyonce.
    -Selection of rap music. (I don’t listen to enough of it to pick. Missy Elliot, Jay Z, Kanye, Childish Gambino, Beastie Boys, something with Reggaeton, something New Jack Swing)
    -A psychadelic piece from either the Middle East or South Asia. But also, a Jimi Hendrix performance, plus a Jimi take on classic blues.
    -Something with strong Afro-cuban influence and instrumentation. Tradición by Gloria Estefan?
    -A Bulgarian dance piece in a ludicrous time signature. A Middle Eastern traditional dance piece.
    -A few percussion-only pieces. A taiko showcase, and then a marching battery drum break. Maybe a batucada bateria showcase piece.
    -One of the more modern jazz ensembles pieces that has a strong melody, like Whiplash, or perhaps a modern jazz ensemble cover of a video game song.
    -Libertango, Fuga and Misterioso by Astor Piazzolla
    -Tale of the Destinies + The One, Shanti Shanti Shanti by Babymetal
    -A barbershop quartet piece, a larger modern acapella piece.
    -Maybe something from Queen? suck it Beatles
    -Finish with La Valse by Maurice Ravel

    • Bobobob says:

      Given the Grosse Fugue and the later piano sonatas, I think Beethoven would be more receptive to modern non-classical genres than you think, and much more so than the other composers you mention.

      • AG says:

        Beethoven, like Bach, has more meticulous structure and structure-based melody development than Mozart, so it seems that much of pop or rock would be laughably simple in comparison.

    • Edward Scizorhands says:

      Something that can move him through time sounds valuable to those aliens that keep showing up. I offer to trade Mozart to them for 10 tons of antimatter.

    • noyann says:

      Mozart should hear the Beach Boys (with many explanations of the texts).

      Bach, I would ask of his opinion of Moondog.

    • Enkidum says:

      I think Beethoven would have a good appreciation for Kind of Blue era Miles. But I can’t really explain why well.

    • b_jonas says:

      Interesting premise, thank you for expanding on your thoughts.

    • EchoChaos says:

      Bach is so much a genius of structure, I think that most everything would be beneath him, or at least not offer much of interest or to take home.

      I actually would love to see Bach introduced to new instruments and some of the later styles that he could apply his genius to.

      I think you should also give him something modern rock and a variety of metal pieces to show some of the classical/blues/rock fusion that came out of that.

      • AG says:

        Yeah, Bach performed on synthesizers is one of my favorite things. It strips out musician interpretation and instrumental timbre quirks, leaving behind pure composition and structure. Bach then adding precise synthesizer control and timbre into his optimizations would take them to the next level.

        Do you have any examples or strongly structured rock that you would show Bach? I’m of torn mind about Yes. Metal is an interesting case, since some of it is openly about living up to Baroque structure, and others are almost just synthesizer pieces. Yet, percussion wasn’t a common part of the Baroque chamber ensemble, so most bands are only trios, not even quartets (bass, two guitars).

  39. knzhou says:

    I agree that thrive vs. survive doesn’t make the right call here. The correct distinction (which includes thrive vs. survive as a special case) is that the left has a bias for detecting internal problems, while the right has a bias for detecting external threats.

    That’s why basically every right-wing source was pro-travel restrictions when the threat actually was external (to stop a scary foreign thing from coming in), but now paradoxically thinks we shouldn’t bother with restrictions now that the threat has actually arrived and is doing huge damage.

    What is depressing is that you can read off somebody’s opinions almost perfectly given their political ideology, even though the virus itself doesn’t give a damn about ideology.

    • I can immediately think of a dozen counterexamples to the internal vs. external threat thing.

      How would you explain the world outside the United States? If this is a consistent Left-Right pattern, you should see it internationally. The explanation is one man.

  40. Well... says:

    In case anyone watched Tiger King and can’t get enough of that kind of thing…

    Nine years ago two friends of a friend of mine made a documentary about exotic pet owners in Ohio. It’s called “The Elephant in the Living Room”. It’s on Amazon Prime, maybe some other places. This seems like as good a time to signal-boost it as any.

  41. bean says:

    Biweekly Naval Gazing links:

    First, I’ve started a new series on coastal defenses, the first part looking at defenses in England through about 1750. I’d love to take a more international perspective, but sourcing limitations make this impossible.

    Last week was Easter, and as such, I’ve highlighted the work of the US Chaplain Corps, in this case Father Joe O’Callahan of the USS Franklin.

    I’ve previously covered the actions of various nation’s battleships in WWII, and have finally completed the work with the last major naval power, France. French battleships played a key role in some of the war’s most unusual diplomatic dramas, which ultimately saw the British attacking their erstwhile allies mere weeks after the Fall of France.

    Lastly, Sunday was the 31st anniversary of the explosion in Turret II of Iowa that took the lives of 47 sailors.

  42. Ouroborobot says:

    I’m mostly a lurker so perhaps my objection doesn’t particularly matter, but for a non-culture war thread there are an awful lot of decidedly hot button very-much-CW threads popping up. Maybe it’s all in my head, but it seems like the overall prevalence of repetitive, vaguely hostile and standoffish political comments has been going up in general around here, and rich non-CW discussion declining in turn. There are a few frequent commenters who seem to adopt that sort of tone in general, but the trend is not just restricted to that handful.

    • Lambert says:

      Scott’s post mentioned some CW/CW-adjacent things.
      When he does this, the commentariat tends to pick up these topics.

      • Nick says:

        Yep. Every time Scott brings up a CW topic at the top of the thread this happens. He even mentioned M*ldb*g this time, God help us, though fortunately most folks didn’t bite.

    • Edward Scizorhands says:

      You’re probably right, and I’m probably not blameless.

      Thanks for bringing it up.

    • Ouroborobot says:

      I was just struck by the number of threads which essentially amount to opinion-based tribal/cultural analysis. I suspect a lot of it is just there being a baked-in political writing prompt for this one, as Lambert and Nick pointed out. Thrive v survive, the politics of pro/con China and that whole can of worms, discussion of the nature of the blog and commenters in rather loaded terms like “anti-feminist”, etc. Most of it is well meaning and interesting, and I like political discussions. I just really dig the non-CW open threads as a nice change of pace and was seeing a lot of red/blue this/that. I get it though; the one big subject that’s on everyone’s mind and we all want to discuss with smart people is one which has been irrevocably politicized from multiple angles.

      • Lambert says:

        I think making some threads non-corona would also help.

        It was a nice change of pace the other day when everyone suddenly started talking about food on the OT.

  43. LadyJane says:

    It’s not just your Thrive vs. Survive theory at stake. The idea that conservatives tend to have a higher disgust response (including a heightened fear of disease) is one of the foundational premises of political psychology.

    Granted, the premise could simply be wrong, which is probably the simplest explanation for why it’s not holding up right now. Political psychology is a relatively new field, so errors are to be expected, and there’s been some pushback against the “conservatives are afraid of disease” theory. But there’s also a fair amount of evidence backing it, and support from both conservative and liberal thinkers. So I’ve been thinking a lot about alternative explanations.

    One possibility is that devout religious belief supersedes the disgust response. This explanation works in places like Israel, Iran, and Bangladesh, where people have disobeyed the rules of social distancing to attend large religious ceremonies. It also works for a small minority of Evangelical Christians in the United States, who are being told by their pastors that God will protect them if they prove their faith by coming to church. But most of the resistance to social distancing has been secular in nature, so this theory doesn’t hold much water. It also completely falls apart in places like Brazil, where conservatives are mostly Catholic and they’re still opposing lockdowns, against the direct recommendations of the Catholic Church.

    Another possibility is that modern conservatives are really more pro-capitalism than pro-traditionalism. If so, it makes sense that they’d be more motivated by concern for financial markets than fear of disease, leading them to oppose lockdowns. Additionally, they might further be inclined to downplay the pandemic because many of the solutions being proposed are leftist ones (e.g. increased spending on healthcare programs and unemployment insurance, the equivalent of a temporary Universal Basic Income in the form of monthly stimulus checks, government subsidization of businesses affected by the lockdown). This is the theory that’s most popular among socialists and other anti-capitalist far-leftists. But if this was the case, I’d expect it to be mostly the fiscally conservative Mitt Romney types who were opposing quarantine measures, while the more socially conservative, nationalistic, populist Tea Party conservatives were the ones who favored social distancing and refused to risk their health for the sake of the economy. Yet in reality, we have almost the exact opposite situation! It’s the moderate fiscal conservatives who tend to be more supportive of lockdowns, and the populists who tend to be most strongly opposed! So that’s another theory that doesn’t hold up.

    Yet another possibility is that the leadership of populist movements is responsible. Populists themselves might be expected to prioritize disease avoidance over the stock market, but they largely take their lead from politicians like Trump and Bolsonaro, who are serving the interests of the corporate elite despite their pretense of being populist reformers. This is the theory that seems to be most popular in liberal circles, along with some less refined variants (e.g. Trump is simply refusing to take the threat seriously because he’s too proud to admit that he was initially wrong, or because he’s compelled to always do the opposite of what liberals want, or out of sheer maliciousness, or just because he’s always completely wrong about everything). Needless to say, I don’t put much stock in any of these ideas.

    The final possibility, and the one that seems most convincing to me, is that populist conservatives really, really, really don’t trust the mainstream media or the scientific/academic establishment, to the point where they’re inclined to dismiss or disbelieve anything they hear from establishment sources. Some of them may even be less likely to believe something if it’s being endorsed by the so-called experts. If this is true, then it makes perfect sense that populist conservatives would view reports of the disease with skepticism, not because they’re unafraid of disease but because they simply have no reason to trust the reports in the first place. (Whether this hyper-skepticism is warranted is an entirely different topic, and no doubt a matter of extreme controversy, so I’ll leave that discussion for a debate thread.)

    • Matt M says:

      Some of them may even be less likely to believe something if it’s being endorsed by the so-called experts.

      This is basically where I’m at now.

      Any headline that starts with “Experts say” might as well say “Please enjoy the following political propaganda” IMO.

      Note that I was afraid of the disease, back in the early days when the expert consensus was “don’t be afraid of this disease.” Now I’m not afraid of it. Funny how that works.

      • crh says:

        I hear experts say this is an excellent truth-seeking strategy.

        • Statismagician says:

          What’s the phenomenon where we all notice how awful reporting about our fields of interest is, but don’t make the obvious leap to reporting about stuff we don’t know about called again?

          • The Nybbler says:

            The Michael CrichtonMurray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. The law where no eponymous phenomenon is correctly named is called Stigler’s Law of Eponymy.

          • LadyJane says:

            @Statismagician, @The Nybbler: Personally, I don’t think Gell-Mann Amnesia is a good reason to simply ignore mainstream news sources or presume everything they say is wrong. Most people don’t have the background knowledge to understand new discoveries outside of their individual fields of expertise; as a result, news sources tend to explain new scientific findings in very simplified terms at the expense of detail and accuracy. To an expert in that field, it may seem as though the media is just getting everything wrong. But to a layperson, reading an oversimplified half-truth will still give them a more complete and accurate picture of the world. It’s basically a lie-for-children.

            Now, this has its drawbacks. A layperson who thinks they’re an expert in the field might start trying to build new theories on those simplified half-truths, resulting in wildly inaccurate conclusions. And when there’s a long chain of news articles reporting on other news articles reporting on the scientific findings, it can become like a game of telephone, with each new account becoming more distorted than the last, until you’re left with something that barely resembles the actual discovery. Some news outlets also have a bias toward sensationalism, leading them to deliberately misreport or exaggerate findings for the sake of catchier headlines. But overall, I think hearing a watered-down low-resolution version of the truth is better than not hearing about the new discovery at all, and better for a layperson than a more thorough and precise account which they’ll be likely to misinterpret or simply ignore as a result of its complexity.

          • FLWAB says:

            C. S. Lewis’s opinion on reading the newspaper:

            Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be seen before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand.

            Better not to read at all then read watered down half-truths, some might say. If you really need the information then you need accurate information: if you don’t need it then you don’t need half-truths.

          • Deiseach says:

            Or indeed Chesterton’s view of it, being a working journalist himself:

            Nothing looks more neat and regular than a newspaper, with its parallel columns, its mechanical printing, its detailed facts and figures, its responsible, polysyllabic leading articles. Nothing, as a matter of fact, goes every night through more agonies of adventure, more hairbreadth escapes, desperate expedients, crucial councils, random compromises, or barely averted catastrophes. Seen from the outside, it seems to come round as automatically as the clock and as silently as the dawn. Seen from the inside, it gives all its organisers a gasp of relief every morning to see that it has come out at all; that it has come out without the leading article upside down or the Pope congratulated on discovering the North Pole.

    • matkoniecz says:

      The idea that conservatives tend to have a higher disgust response (including a heightened fear of disease) is one of the foundational premises of political psychology.

      It is part of a replication crisis. AFAIK the study turned out to be worthless.

      Taken together, our findings suggest that the differences between conservatives and liberals in disgust sensitivity are context-dependent rather than a stable personality difference,

      https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/11/27/no-conservatives-dont-experience-feelings-of-disgust-any-more-than-liberals/

      • LadyJane says:

        In my original post, I mentioned that there’s been pushback to the idea, and linked to that very same article as an example.

    • Ursus Arctos says:

      My hybrid theory:

      Hyper-capitalism means that most conservatives have an inclination towards reopening things. However this inclination is overridden in the case of moderate “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” conservatives by scientific evidence suggesting that reopening everything will cause massive political and economic damage. However the deeper cultural conservatives don’t have this sort of override button, because they don’t believe in experts.

      In summary: There’s a pathway from “conservatism” to “hypercapitalism” to “reopen everything” but in the case of “moderates” that pathway is defeasiable through expert advice, whereas in the case of cultural conservatives that pathway isn’t defeasible by experts (though it may be defeasible by other things). This is true even though the culturally liberal, fiscally conservative “moderates” are somewhat more insistent about free markets under normal circumstances.

      I’m aware that this is a clumsy theory, but that’s my best guess right now.

      • Randy M says:

        I don’t think it’s fair to call “believes we need people working to be productive, also values face to face interaction” “hypercapitalism”.

      • LadyJane says:

        The problem with this theory is that I don’t really get why traditional conservatism suddenly transforms into support for “hyper-capitalism.” Traditional conservatism and capitalism are very different ideologies, and there’s little reason to presume that the former would automatically lead one to support the latter, or vice-versa. The alliance between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives is largely an artefact of the Cold War that’s lingered around due to political partisanship.

    • mtl1882 says:

      Excellent post. I think you’re on to a few things there. I always considered myself left-wing, but will admit I’ve recently drifted to a certain type of right-wing thought on some issues. I wouldn’t classify myself as either, as I don’t think I’m a good fit on either side, so I can’t speak to it directly. However, one of the ways I drifted to be somewhat right-wing was an increasing aversion to shoddy or bad faith narrative-driven news, which became the entire mainstream corporate news in the last decade. (No, I don’t watch Fox News, either). And this led to an aversion to people who cling to the (at least left-wing) news as a beacon of truth in a world that doesn’t appreciate facts.

      I personally feel like doing the opposite of whatever they moralize about and half-cover, but of course I’m not that childish. But that impulse is definitely there and drives some people. At this point, I simply can’t take this stuff seriously. I agree with Matt M., below, that “Any headline that starts with “Experts say” might as well say “Please enjoy the following political propaganda” IMO.” The narratives and agendas could not be more heavy-handed, especially during this COVID-19 thing. I don’t think they are lying about COVID-19 being a serious thing, but I do think they’re propagandizing to a ridiculous extent and perpetuating a fantasy world in which we’ll soon have a vaccine and the economy can be shut down indefinitely until test and trace saves us and that they were on top of the outbreak in the January. But this should not be a realization confined to right-wing people, and I doubt it is. Plenty of right wing people support the lockdown and vice versa. The ones out protesting seem to be more confused and angry and interpreting things through a partisan lens, which I guess is reasonable enough in all of this craziness.

      I think many American republicans are definitely more about capitalism than tradition at this point, and I do think the fact that the solutions seem like they might be progressive policies is affecting this, as well as the desire to signal against progressives. Our partisanship is not helping anyone. I also think left-wing people in general are more willing to follow rules on most things. They like to be seen as responsibly knowledgeable and behaved. And so once that happened, the battle lines were drawn, although there are many exceptions on both sides. I think the seeming inconsistencies and erratic course are reflective of the fact that this is partly driven by political feelings that interacted in weird ways, and that for a while people were thinking more of politics than the virus when they spoke of the virus. They were initially using it to score points, and have probably gone back to doing so. I also don’t think people quite know how to react to this whole thing, because it is kind of sudden and out of sight for many people, and the consequences are so huge and uncertain. Everyone’s just acting a little nuts, but I don’t think this partisan breakdown diverges from my expectations as much as it might appear to at first.

      I think your political orientation has to do a lot with personality/temperament, and a lot of people just don’t like being told what to do. Conservatives like order and rules to some extent, but those are often rules they kind of already like to follow, just ground rules. They have a harder time, I think, with people actively interfering in the details of their daily lives, as opposed to just expressing opposition to something they do. Left-wing people like to have more room for expression, but that’s a different sort of freedom. So the entire nature of this rather extreme government interference with basic aspects of daily living is probably going to aggravate people on the right, and I’d expect that pattern to hold true across the world.

      I’d add that I would not expect this virus to trigger the disgust response as some other historical examples might. The whole social distancing thing gives you the idea that it just floats over to you in the air from your kids and neighbors, no dirtiness involved. It’s not like ebola, smallpox, or some similarly visible contagion. The people dying of it are mostly out of sight. It’s not super associated with poverty or any lifestyle that might disturb people. It affects everyone so broadly that you can’t scapegoat a group and lock them up elsewhere. For most people, this illness will be similar to something they’ve experienced before, so it doesn’t shock the senses. Sometimes I have a strong disgust response but this incident hasn’t really triggered it.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        I also think left-wing people in general are more willing to follow rules on most things. They like to be seen as responsibly knowledgeable and behaved.

        The 60s just called. They’d like to surround you in a drum circle and chant “Down with the man” at you.

        Also, those anti-BLM and anti-immigration folks in the other corner think that following the law is very important.

        I don’t think your ideas do much other than describing current behavior in a “just so” manner.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Yeah, there is no hard and fast rule for what authorities are obeyed by the left versus the right, but they both have authorities that they obey and authorities that they protest against.

          Most of those decisions are culture war, not based on some first principles that either the left or right always hold to.

          • LadyJane says:

            I don’t think most people base their decisions on any kind of rationally-derived “first principles.” But psychological studies have shown that conservatives and liberals have different inclinations (possibly on a subconscious level), which makes it somewhat predictable which stance they’ll take on a particular issue.

            If it turns out that the political psychologists are wrong, then I’m not sure where that leaves us. One possibility is that conservatives and liberals have different inclinations than the ones we’ve singled out, in which case a lot more research needs to be done. The other possibility is that the whole idea of political affiliation being tied to different psychological inclinations is bunk, in which case it’s basically entirely random whether conservatives or liberals will take a given stance on any particular issue; there’s no pattern to be observed beyond “politician from Group X took a hard stance on this issue, so Group Y took the opposite stance and now they’re in a feedback loop forever.” If that’s the case, then one could expect that in a world where events had played out slightly differently, conservatives would be the ones promoting gun control and liberals would be the ones opposing it. That doesn’t seem too likely to me, but maybe that’s just because it’s hard to take the ‘outside view’ on things like this.

          • in which case it’s basically entirely random whether conservatives or liberals will take a given stance on any particular issue

            You are assuming away the explanation that most conservatives and liberals would offer — that their stance on an issue is based on some set of factual and normative beliefs that they hold in common with others of their political affiliation.

            Consider the case of libertarians, the one I am most familiar with. Most libertarians believe that governments are bad at doing things, that if a government is in charge of producing some good or service, the cost will usually be higher and the quality lower than if it is done on the free market. That has implications for lots of issues.

            Similarly, most libertarians are in favor of liberty and have a shared definition of liberty in which the fact that someone will not sell things to you because he doesn’t like your race or religion, while it may be a bad thing, is not a reduction of your liberty, whereas compelling you to sell something to someone if the reason you don’t want to is that you don’t like his race or religion is a reduction of your liberty. That example points to a particular political issue, but the approach to what freedom means generalizes to lots of others.

            “Conservative” describes a coalition, including people with a range of political beliefs, so the relationship between beliefs and policy positions is more complicated, but it’s still there.

            I agree that some of political issue choice is just tribalism, that on some issues which way conservatives go will be determined by which way Trump goes, which way liberals by which way the NYT goes, but that isn’t the only thing determining it.

            I’m not arguing that first principles are rationally derived, only that there are underlying beliefs more fundamental than the belief on any particular policy issue. And the reason need not be differences in underlying psychology.

          • Gerry Quinn says:

            We’re fighting SARS-COVID-19, which probably has no particular ideology. We’ve adopted a strategy of lockdown. In some places such as Sweden they’ve done otherwise.

            Wherever we are, we need to pull together on a common strategy, I’m not taking this as political right now. In the future it may become political but at the moment I’d hope that folks of all political and religious persuasions are going to work together.

  44. GearRatio says:

    Completely OT to anything:

    I needed a quarantine project and I also needed a chest freezer, so I picked up, for free, a largish chest freezer from someone on Nextdoor. The catch: their power went out once at some point and it sat for an extended time with rotten meat in it. Since “expert at deodorizing” seems like a useful title, I decided to give it a go. Things I’ve done:

    1. I decided early on that the main seal would probably have to go; similar experiences tell me those soft rubber seals are especially odor-retaining. I found out they don’t sell the seal, but sell the entire door assembly for like $40. I decided to cheat on that part.

    2. I scoured the inside of it with a scrubby pad, steel wool and straight bleach followed by a thorough rinse with the hose. This more-or-less cleaned it, but once the clouds of deadly chlorine gas cleared I found it still smelled.

    3. I took two additional cleaning rounds with an enzyme pet stain cleaner we had around and an all-purpose bathroom cleaner. This did nothing to the smell and left the whole thing sort of greasy with soap residue.

    4. I decided to move to the commercial end of things, and found the general recommendation for hard-surface deodorant to be a detergent called “Odoban”. This comes in a big jug and needs to be diluted down to 5oz per gallon for this application. You wet the surface, wipe it on, let it sit for ten minutes, then rinse it off. I just did this and it smells much better, but is still cool and wet; I’m waiting for the sun to dry it off and warm it up with fingers crossed.

    If this doesn’t work, I’ve still got A. high-concentration hydrogen peroxide and B. Ozone generators to try. The good news is I’m already much, much more prepared to do post-murder cleanup and somewhat less bored.

    Postscript: A normal person definitely shouldn’t try to do this; it’s very likely 100% worth the money to buy a new or un-rotted used freezer as opposed to the work and bad smells which go into and come out of this project, respectively.

    Post-postscript: If there exists in this forum some kind of smell removal expert who understands this better than I do from a science or professional point of view, I’d love to hear from you.

    • John Schilling says:

      I’ve still got A. high-concentration hydrogen peroxide

      What is your definition of “high concentration” in this context? Because, yes, with sufficiently high concentration, you can completely eradicate all organic matter in your refrigerator, and the smell is almost certainly coming from organic matter. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure you are made from organic matter…

      • GearRatio says:

        This falls into the “I’m aware there is an option between ‘for cuts and scrapes’ concentrations and ‘kills you and blows up things’ levels of peroxide purity” realm where I haven’t got there yet, but I promise I will look it up first before I accidentally kill myself with it.

        • Eltargrim says:

          The highest consumer grade of peroxide is likely to be around 6%, and that’s the highest concentration I’d handle without at least some proper PPE. 12% is also apparently available.

          Anything around 30% or above requires serious safety precautions, and you’re not likely to have been able to purchase it. If you did manage to get it, you’re probably on a list now.

          Regardless, be sure to work in a well-ventilated space.

          • The Nybbler says:

            35% is available. I think 40% is where ATF starts giving the stink-eye, and 60% is where it starts getting interesting.

          • Eltargrim says:

            Huh, will you look at that; 35% available in pool supply stores. I’m a little surprised, that’s about the lowest concentration required to get good TATP.

          • John Schilling says:

            Peroxide is shipped in bulk at 70% and blended down as needed for end-user applications; it’s not that hard to get at 70% if you’re willing to buy at least a drum and, yes, maybe get your name on a list. And of course don’t do this unless you know what you are doing and have the right PPE.

            35%, you should have PPE but if you’re a lazy homeowner who just wants to pour it straight into your pool you probably won’t get any worse than seriously bleached and irritated skin when you inevitably spill a bit on your hands. And ruin your clothes. Splashing it in your eyes would be Very Bad.

            Above 35%, assume that any organic you ever splashed it on or mixed it with has turned into a dangerously unstable explosive that needs to be wetted down and disposed of, unless it has already spontaneously burst into flame. Above 70%, unless you got it from a very short list of professional suppliers who probably won’t give you the time of day, just run away.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Well, I suppose I could try to get some from my buddy Ivan who swears he has connections with Russian space program. “Is 90%, is good stuff, yes!” But there’s a YouTube video on concentrating 3% to 90% using vacuum distillation, and I’m sure it would work even better starting with 35%.

            Wait, what am I using this stuff for?

          • SamChevre says:

            The highest easily-available hydrogen peroxide in small quantities that I know of is hair-dye developer–40-volume is 12%, and is available at most beauty product stores. I’d wear gloves and glasses, but it’s not super-dangerous.

          • Deiseach says:

            Above 35%, assume that any organic you ever splashed it on or mixed it with has turned into a dangerously unstable explosive that needs to be wetted down and disposed of, unless it has already spontaneously burst into flame.

            Why did we not consider this in our list of ways to kill a shoggoth? This seems a lot more likely to work, at least to me it does!

            Pros: Shoggoths are definitely made of organic material; a 15-foot sphere of deadly killer spontaneously bursting into flame would be awesome

            Cons: The bit about wetting down; given that shoggoths seem to hang out in damp/misty environments, they might have too much access to handy bodies of water before they can burst into flame 🙁

            Wait, what am I using this stuff for?

            Setting up a shoggoth (and other Mythos nasties what are organic in nature) extermination service! Be prepared like the Boy Scouts, for who knows what you might meet in the dark woods next Roodmas?

            At the very least, the next “Call of Chthulu” game night will be extra special 😀

    • HeelBearCub says:

      Should have watched that Mythbusters episode first, I’m guessing.

      Although, I guess a freezer isn’t quite as prone to retaining smells as all the piece parts in a car.

    • toastengineer says:

      Have you considered just letting it sit out in the sun, open, for a while? After all, plenty of things die outside, and outside smells fine. Sunlight isn’t the best disinfectant, but it is the cheapest.

      • GearRatio says:

        Technically that’s what it’s been doing since I took the lid off of it, but even if it worked (originally there was a lot of meat ooze that needed removing, not sure how the sun would have fared) it would have sort of defeated the purpose of the “project” part of it.

        • profgerm says:

          Seconding sunlight and time, if nothing else works (though probably to extent that defeats your purpose). I used to work with decomposing material on a regular basis (for college research) and found out two things.

          One, I acclimated to the smell rather quickly. However in this case “acclimated” meant lost probably 80% or more of my sense of smell entirely, and what I thought was a taste for spicy food was in fact just that incredibly hot peppers were all I could taste for a few years. My schnoz recovered slowly, and my tolerance for heat dropped.

          One seminar I didn’t have time to shower after digging, so I just changed clothes, and even though I couldn’t smell it everyone else informed me that I was radiating the scent of old warm death.

          Two, even though what usually entered my vehicle was only a bit of mud on my shovels and boots, the smell lingered intensely. It was at least a year after I stopped doing that work that passengers stopped being able to smell it.

          • Randy M says:

            Okay, what was your major that had you grave digging?

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Forensic anthropologist would be my guess.

          • John Schilling says:

            At Miskatonic University, even the English-lit majors have to pass graverobbing 101.

          • Deiseach says:

            At Miskatonic University, even the English-lit majors have to pass graverobbing 101.

            It’s not graverobbing, it’s “sourcing cultural artefacts for study”.

            If people will insist on being buried with unnameable tomes and talismans of fearful potency instead of doing their duty to Learning and donating them to the museum or university, then this is what they have to expect in the afterlife.

            If they don’t like it, then they can either write the relevant institution into their wills or rise shrieking in a cloud of bats as undead monstrosities out of the splintered remains of their violated coffins to rend the students into gobbets of flesh (Miskatonic U’s highly rated academic reputation is bolstered by its rigorous, not to say severe, approach to failing students on the practical exams).

    • Tenacious D says:

      Looking over the list of things you’ve tried, I don’t see any high pH solutions (baking soda in water is pretty safe to handle; other options may require PPE and special disposal) or absorbents (activated carbon, for example). Those are commonly used in industrial applications (along with oxidizers like you’ve tried).

    • RRob says:

      On my freezer there was a catch plate underneath the drain hole in the bottom. It was close to the compressor. It didn’t drain to anywhere else, I imagine it’s normally meant to be kept warm to evaporate any drips. When my freezer failed the tray and the tube leading to it filled with… stuff. Just flooding and rinsing the drain hole from inside the freezer wasn’t enough to clean the tray.

    • baconbits9 says:

      I don’t see it recommended but baking soda is the go to odor remover, just coat as many surfaces with it (dry) as you can, let sit overnight and then wash the whole thing with a couple of gallons of white vinegar.

    • Gerry Quinn says:

      Or you could just get used to the smell!

    • Deiseach says:

      I stand in awe of your commitment to researching the perfect murder For Science!

      I’d have started off with baking soda as the traditional sort of odour removal for home purposes cure before the bleach etc.

      Depending on how well your commercial preparation works, and if there is any lingering whiffiness left, and if it’s not too late, you could try the baking soda and see how it goes.

      My intuition, though, is that if the entire thing has been permeated by leaving rotting meat percolate in it for a while, that the stink has sunk so far into the material of the freezer, you’ll never get it out and your only recourse will be to dump it.

  45. Malte Skarupke says:

    Hi, heard a story today related to previous discussion of hydroxychloroquine: Last Monday a nursing home thought that one of their residents had covid-19. They couldn’t get a test, but they already had two other confirmed cases. They gave her hydroxychloroquine. It didn’t help, she died on Sunday.

    So it’s a story of a nursing home thinking that somebody might have covid-19 (but they’re not sure) and then giving her a drug that they think might help. (but they’re not sure)

    Heard it on the Brian Lehrer show today:
    https://www.wnyc.org/story/the-brian-lehrer-show-2020-04-20
    It’s in the segment about nursing homes. The son called in to the show.

    The previous segment on the show has a doctor who says he would be very careful with the drug because it has known bad interactions with other drugs. Makes me wonder if the nursing home knew about those.

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      Impossible to know what would have happened to this particular woman if she hadn’t been given the drug. Would she have survived? Or would she have died at about the same time? Sooner? Later? This is what we need actual trials with n>1 for.

      I’m not a doctor so I have no particular recommendations about whether hydroxychloroquine should or shouldn’t be administered in severe cases. If someone close to me comes down with COVID I’ll do the research necessary to form an at-least-partially informed opinion.

    • Garrett says:

      > Makes me wonder if the nursing home knew about those.

      A “nursing home” isn’t an entity with agency. There are people with individual qualifications who perform specific tasks. It’s usually (lots of caveats about how different jurisdictions do things differently, etc., etc.) a nurse who dispenses/administers the medication. But they rarely have the authority to do so independently.

      It would be a physician who would have to provide the medical order for it to be dispensed/administered. Any physician worth their salt would know about the main contraindications (or at least look them up) and perform rule-out testing for any relevant ones. A smart one would also consult with a pharmacist to see if there are any known drug interactions with the medications they are already taking.

      Depending upon the cause of death (post hoc, ergo propter hoc and all that), there might be a legal cause of action for malpractice here.

    • albatross11 says:

      The problem is, there’s not a clearly right treatment for someone with SARS2–a bunch of different hospitals and countries and medical authorities have tried to cobble something together that seems to help, but nobody’s really sure it helps. So everyone’s shooting in the dark.

  46. viVI_IViv says:

    So, in the non-Covid-19 news, Stephen Wolfram is working on a Theory of Everything. Here is the non-technical explanation (which I more or less skimmed), or if you prefer the 448-page green ink technical version.

    TL;DR The world is implemented in Wolfram Mathematica.
    Ok, I jest, sorta. He’s looking into hypergraph automata, an extension of his beloved cellular automata: you start with a simple hypergraph whose nodes contain strings (of symbols, not the string theory stuff) and interatively apply local update rules that typically generate larger hypergraphs. After a gazillion steps, you get big hypergraph whose topology you can analyze statistically. If I understand correctly, he claims he can sort of define rules that results in stuff similar to Euclidean or Lorentzian geometry, quantum many-worlds, relativistic causality and so on. He makes clear than this is still a work-in-progress and he hasn’t yet derived realistic laws of physics, but he’s hopeful that this might work as a general framework to enable such research.

    What to make of it? It seems quite ambitious, if not crackpottish, and Wolfram has a bad reputation with physicists, but then he has been working on this for a year or so while thousands academic physicists have been working on these problems for the last 50 years and they came up with 11-dimensional strings’n’sheet that didn’t go anywhere, so who are they to criticize? Also I think I’ve recently attended a couple of talks by physicists talking about deriving the laws of physics from causal graphs or something (I didn’t really understand it well), and it seems that Wolfram is moving more or less on the same direction, but he’s putting his digital physics spin over it. And personally I’ve always found Mathematica to be the most beautifully designed programming language, so kudos to him.

    So, is there any potential scientific value in any of this or is just the ramblings of a bored rich man with too much time on his hands?

    • knzhou says:

      Physicist here. I don’t see anything of substance in Wolfram’s proposal, just a lot of pretty graphs. Just like Wolfram’s “A New Kind of Science”, we have the problem that there is a vast gulf between what you need to make flashy popsci and what you need to make a real physical theory. In increasing order of difficulty, you need to:

      1. make a set of dynamical rules that matches general relativity in the low energy limit, such as recovering Lorentz invariance and the Einstein field equation (this is supposed to be the easiest part — without at least doing this, a theory of everything is worth less than the graph doodles in my middle school notebooks)

      2. demonstrate that you can add something that looks like matter

      3. reproduce effects that we know have to appear in quantum gravity in the semiclassical limit, such as Hawking radiation and black hole entropy

      4. demonstrate that you can add matter that behaves, quantitatively, like the Standard Model

      5. make specific predictions that we didn’t already know from purely semiclassical considerations

      6. find a way to verify those predictions

      7. have the predictions actually be correct upon verification

      These 7 steps are hard, which is why nobody has managed to do them. But it looks like Wolfram hasn’t even bothered to start on step 1. His technical material is just hundreds and hundreds of pages of pretty graphs and big words, with no specifics. It’s more akin to a reformulation of the foundations of mathematics than a theory of physics — and it’s not a particularly good one, at that.

      It’s the same complaint I have about category theorists trying to do applied physics. (And category theory is a much more powerful language than Wolfram’s!) Yes, you might have an incredibly general language, with which you can talk about vast swaths of possible physical theories. But we already had way too many possibilities using ordinary mathematics! We need to narrow down on specifics, not muddy the waters by making things even more general. I mean, it’s like trying to rescue a startup by translating the documentation into Esperanto. I’m sure you can do it, but I don’t care unless you can show me something new it provides.

      In other words, if Wolfram and co. come up with a sharp success, where they derive something important without directly putting what they want to get into their starting assumptions, physicists would pay attention. I know they would, because it’s precisely how, e.g. special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory became core parts of physics. Wolfram is not there, and not even moving anywhere near that direction, but declaring victory anyway. You have heard about it solely because he is rich.

      • Gurkenglas says:

        Afaic the point of category theory isn’t that the space of ideas you can express in its language is larger – it’s that it’s smaller. The “interesting” ideas just happen to fall into it anyway.

        • knzhou says:

          You’re correct that this is how it works in math, and that’s why people want to try applying it to physics. But when they do, it just doesn’t work out: you don’t get those moments where category theory actually simplifies something physicists had labored to prove. It just functions as an inert complication of language.

          As far as I’m aware, there does not exist a single nontrivial statement anywhere in physics that is easier to see from the categorical perspective than from the usual, non-formal language used by physicists.

      • Gerry Quinn says:

        I found it pretty light, but isn’t there a movement among the likes of Julian Barbour and others to rephrase the universe as a set of logically-connected mathematical objects?

    • matkoniecz says:

      Is it suffering from the same things as NKS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science

      not making directly verifiable predictions

      NKS does not establish rigorous mathematical definitions,[26] nor does it attempt to prove theorems

      information conveyed by pictures that do not have formal meaning

      Wolfram’s speculations of a direction towards a fundamental theory of physics have been criticized as vague and obsolete. Scott Aaronson, Professor of Computer Science at University of Texas Austin, also claims that Wolfram’s methods cannot be compatible with both special relativity and Bell’s theorem violations, and hence cannot explain the observed results of Bell test experiments.

      Wolfram’s claim that natural selection is not the fundamental cause of complexity in biology

      With extreme hubris, Wolfram has titled his new book on cellular automata “A New Kind of Science”.

      But it’s not new.

      And it’s not science.

      http://www.lurklurk.org/wolfram/review.html

      • zardoz says:

        Thanks, that’s a great summary of A New Kind of Science. That really takes me back two decades, to when Wolfram first released the book.

        The writeup is a lot more generous and fair-minded towards the book than most I’ve read. And frankly, much more than I would have had the patience to be.

        The simple fact is that Wolfram was not good about giving credit where it was due. And he hadn’t really discovered that much, besides a particular cellular automaton that was Turing-complete. Even that was actually done by his grad student, as I understand it.

        To be honest, proving that something is Turing-complete isn’t a big deal in computer science any more– since at least the 1970s. This is really intro-level stuff in CS theory at this point. A computer can be implemented with electronics, mechanical valves, a bunch of rocks that you move around plus some rules, or an infinite number of other things.

        CS students trying to prove that a particular zany thing is Turing-complete is kind of like mechanical engineering students trying to find the most improbable way to light a fire. Well, we can drop this coin off a building, on to a concrete slab, hence generating a spark… It’s fun, but broad theoretical vistas do not open up.

        Now Wolfram is finally doing what he should have done in the first place– come up with some concrete way to re-imagine science on top of cellular automata. If he can really do that, it will actually be “a new kind of science” rather than an intro to cellular automata book with the bibliography (mostly) filed off.

        I’m not a physicist (or even really someone with the needed background) so I can’t really evaluate his claims directly. But the circumstantial evidence does not look good. And the decision to publish this stuff as blog posts rather than as actual peer-reviewed articles seems crankish.

        • matkoniecz says:

          To be honest, proving that something is Turing-complete isn’t a big deal in computer science any more– since at least the 1970s. This is really intro-level stuff in CS theory at this point. A computer can be implemented with electronics, mechanical valves, a bunch of rocks that you move around plus some rules, or an infinite number of other things.

          For example in-game Minecraft mechanisms or C++ templating system or Magic: The Gathering.

          CS students trying to prove that a particular zany thing is Turing-complete is kind of like mechanical engineering students trying to find the most improbable way to light a fire. Well, we can drop this coin off a building, on to a concrete slab, hence generating a spark… It’s fun, but broad theoretical vistas do not open up.

          Yeah, at this point “hey, I proved that this ridiculous thing is Turing-complete” is typically closer to level of SSC effortpost than to “give me Nobel prize”.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness#Unintentional_Turing_completeness

        • Garrett says:

          > CS students trying to prove that a particular zany thing is Turing-complete is kind of like mechanical engineering students trying to find the most improbable way to light a fire.

          This does have practical applications in the realm of computer security. If something involved or attached to your existing computer can be shown to be Turing-complete, you have to worry about it being used as a vector for malware.

          • John Schilling says:

            Anything attached to your computer has to be assumed Turing-complete, because if it matters a sophisticated attacker will just build a bit of Turing-completeness into what was supposed to be dumb metal. And six months later the unsophisticated attackers will be able to buy the attack version from a street vendor in Hong Kong.

    • bullseye says:

      but then he has been working on this for a year or so while thousands academic physicists have been working on these problems for the last 50 years and they came up with 11-dimensional strings’n’sheet that didn’t go anywhere

      I’ve never heard of this guy before, but “did in a year what everyone else couldn’t do in 50” screams crackpot to me.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        I’ve never heard of this guy before

        Never used Wolfram Alpha?

        but “did in a year what everyone else couldn’t do in 50” screams crackpot to me.

        It’s more like he did in a year no less than everyone else could do in 50. Which sounds kind of a low bar, but this is the state of the field.

        • silver_swift says:

          It’s more like he did in a year no less than everyone else could do in 50. Which sounds kind of a low bar, but this is the state of the field.

          “The entire field of physics managed to not get anywhere in 50 years, Wolfram managed to not get anywhere in 1” is not high praise. I bet I could not get anywhere in an afternoon.

    • Enkidum says:

      People have mentioned NKS, which shortly after it came out I read and thought about far more carefully than I probably should have. The man is utterly convinced he is a genius and seems to think everyone else should be convinced of the same, so much so that throughout the book he deliberately obfuscates and ignores the many, many contributions of others to his field of cellular automata, presenting their findings as his own, etc.

      The problem in his case is that he probably is a genius, at least in some respects.

      I think cellular automata may have more to tell us about the nature of reality than skeptics believe (i.e. more than nothing), but orders of magnitude less to tell us than he believes (i.e. you can’t construct a science of everything without occasionally looking out the window).

      I saw a few tweets on this new thing and decided to ignore it. But you should probably listen to someone who knows what they’re talking about.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        I haven’t read his book, but I’ve read various reviews. If I understand correctly, the main non-trivial take home message is that computation is ubiquitous.
        Not only Turing-computation is probably the only possible form of computation in our physical universe (Church–Turing thesis), but Wolfram observes that it is in fact everywhere, because it can arise form very systems interacting according to simple rules.
        I suppose that the idea is not original to him (and yes, trying to pass Cook’s proof of the universality of Rule 110 as his own was a d**k move), but he made a good job at popularizing it.

        I agree with Scott Aaronson and his other critics that CAs, at least naively applied over a regular lattice of spatial dimensions, are probably too naive to capture physics (because of anisotropy, lack of Lorentz transformations, and so on), but I think that whatever the fundamental nature of reality will turn out to be, computation will likely play a big part in it.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Not only Turing-computation is probably the only possible form of computation in our physical universe (Church–Turing thesis)

          Thanks for explaining Church–Turing thesis to me! I finally understood why it is interesting/important claim.

        • Viliam says:

          Not only Turing-computation is probably the only possible form of computation in our physical universe (Church–Turing thesis), but Wolfram observes that it is in fact everywhere, because it can arise form very systems interacting according to simple rules.

          Ironically, the fact that all kinds of systems can be Turing-complete is my main argument against Wolfram’s theories.

          If I understand it correctly, his big idea is, essentially: “This system could be used to simulate our universe… therefore its technical details are important for understanding the deep laws of our universe”. And then he goes desperately fishing for vague analogies with known physics… like, if any events can happen in arbitrary order, that’s obviously like the relativity of time; and if any things keep some relationship after being separated, that’s obviously like quantum entanglement; and I suppose that anything that grows is obviously like the expanding universe, and anything that shrinks is obviously like a black hole; and anything that is either linear or circular is obviously string theory.

          How I see it, “this can simulate our universe”, in other words the fact that something is Turing-complete, means much less than it is used to suggest. Precisely because there are many possible Turing-complete systems, dramatically different from each other in their technical details. The only thing that makes all of them Turing-complete is… well, the fact that they are Turing-complete. (Ugh, I hope you understand what I meant here.) There is no reason to assume that if we randomly choose one of them, the laws of our universe will be analogical to its technical details, as opposed to the technical details of any other Turing-complete system we didn’t choose. Maybe the universe on its deepest level is truly the graph-replacement-thingy… or maybe it is truly a Turing machine editing an infinite linear tape… or maybe it is truly a short program written in Turbo Pascal. Why privilege the first option?

          (Also from the opposite side: a Turing-complete system is not only capable of simulating our universe with our physics, but also any universe with any physics. So finding analogies with our physics is kinda suspicious.)

          The important thing to notice is that the analogies to laws of physics are always vague; they are convincing verbally, not mathematically. Wolfram can write persuasively about how system having a maximum speed is totally like the speed of light in theory of relativity. But he never goes as far as to derive 1 / sqrt(1 – v^2 / c^2) , because the analogy simply doesn’t go that far.

          I assume that to a reader not familiar with the idea that Turing-completeness is actually quite cheap in nature, the combination of “this can be used to simulate our universe” and “here are vague analogies to some laws of physics” is quite convincing. From my perspective, it is just a juxtaposition of “this is Turing-complete” and “I am good at finding vague analogies”.

          • nadbor says:

            But he never goes as far as to derive 1 / sqrt(1 – v^2 / c^2)

            That’s exactly what he derives (and then some). It’s right there in the article.

      • Deiseach says:

        The man is utterly convinced he is a genius and seems to think everyone else should be convinced of the same, so much so that throughout the book he deliberately obfuscates and ignores the many, many contributions of others to his field of cellular automata, presenting their findings as his own, etc.

        The problem in his case is that he probably is a genius, at least in some respects.

        I don’t know anything about any of this, but I am enjoying this sub-thread no end 🙂

        So – sounds like the Galileo Problem: guy is genuinely talented and original in a particular field, but also has an ego the size of Jupiter, is a self-publicist, and is quick off the mark to do down any perceived rivals and deny that anybody knew anything before he came along and he did it all himself with no inspiration from others?

        (Me being bored and naughty this morning since I’ve nothing better to do): Careful, all you critics! In umpty-years time, you could be labouring under the label of ‘the Inquisition that did the dirty to Galileo’ because you’re querying this man’s staggering genius! 😀

        • matkoniecz says:

          Kind of, but it is rather classic case of a brilllant engineer declaring himself as a brilliant scientist.

    • nadbor says:

      I read it and was impressed. If true, this could be huge.

      First Wolfram lays down his framework and it looks like it’s probably Turing complete so without giving more specifics, it’s trivially true that it can simulate physics – therefore boring. But then he goes on to give the details. He commits to a specific definition of spacetime and energy and derives Special and then General relativity from it. Or rather hand-waves and alleges to have the derivation in a separate paper.

      The paper is long and I am lazy but at a glance his hand-waving looks perfectly plausible to me. If the maths check out, this derivation is a really neat result in its own right. The only problem I have with it is that it is perhaps too neat – it doesn’t look like it depends very much on this whole graph idea. Looks more like it’s showing that Einstein’s equations are a consequence of some very basic principles and Wolfram’s graphs are just a specific implementation of these principles. So I have a hunch that Wolfram is not the first do derive relativity in this way. It sounds like something that the Causal Dynamical Triangulation folks would have done already but I don’t know enough about CDT to be sure.

      But the main thing about this derivation is (contra many commenters) that Wolfram doesn’t “hardcode” Einstein’s equations into the model by a specific choice of the Turing machine. They fall out of the framework based on very general assumptions (allegedly).

      In the next section Wolfram tries to show that Quantum Mechanics falls out of the framework too. I say ‘tries’ because I didn’t understand this bit nearly as well as the previous one. But again, at a glance it doesn’t seem crazy (or rather not any more crazy than other models of quantum gravity) and none of it is hardcoded – rather everything he writes about is a consequence of just a handful of innocuous looking assumptions.

      He gives no account of quantum mechanical dynamics, no specific quantum fields etc.; he only describes the QM state space and explains what measurement consists of in this framework. But that is as it should be. This is enough to study the deepest questions of QM and quantum gravity none of which depend on the specifics of the Standard Model or whatnot.

      Then again, I can vouch for the QM section even less than the GR section of the article, so it may be all nonsense. But I firmly disagree with those that say this framework is contentless or ‘not even false’.

      My prediction based on priors for revolutionary new theories and Wolfram’s past performance is that:
      – the derivations of Einstein’s equations is legit but not original and not specific to this framework
      – BUT the implementation of quantum mechanics falls apart at closer inspection

      In the unlikely event that the maths behind the article all checks out, we would still not be close to a theory of everything but I think this approach would beat the current contenders for the theory of quantum gravity in elegance by a mile.

      I can’t wait for people like Scott Aaronson and John Baez to give this a serious review.

  47. Briefling says:

    Does it bother anyone else that Nassim Taleb is arguing for measures that are going to crash the economy, while also positioning himself to seriously profit from a crashing economy?

    Even if we should be crashing the economy, isn’t that, like, a violation of every principle he’s ever stood for?

    • The Nybbler says:

      Doesn’t change my priors for Taleb in the slightest.

    • Not very familiar with Taleb, is the objection based on his thinking? Or is it just standard Copenhagen interpretation of ethics that would apply to anyone?

      • Briefling says:

        Yeah, I think he’s being a hypocrite. Taleb is a proponent of “skin in the game,” the idea that when your decisions affect others, you need to share in any resulting downside.

        As one of the most prominent intellectuals in America, he’s acting as a de facto decision maker on coronavirus policy. In that capacity he has reverse skin in the game: the more economic damage his preferred policies cause, the more he rakes in $$$. And they are liable to cause a lot of damage.

        • MisterA says:

          This seems to have a pretty obvious hole, which is that most economists (and probably Taleb) think reopening the economy without a way to deal with the virus will crash the economy even harder.

          You may not agree, but he’s almost arguing for the position which he thinks does less economic damage.

          • Briefling says:

            That’s irrelevant. If you’re incentivized to cause damage, it doesn’t matter if you “think” you’re doing good — you should just abstain from decision making. Again, going by Taleb’s own ethics here.

          • MisterA says:

            That doesn’t follow at all. The idea of having skin in the game is to motivate you to want to achieve the better outcome. If he thinks the better outcome is achieved by lockdowns then, it’s fulfilling that exact purpose.

          • Briefling says:

            The point is that when it comes to economic damage specifically, worse outcomes for society are better outcomes for him.

            That means pretty obviously he’s motivated to achieve a worse outcome, not better like you claim.

          • silver_swift says:

            @MisterA: I have no idea who this Nassim Taleb fellow is, but if he does stand to gain significantly from the economy crashing and he is partly responsible (de jure or de facto) for coming up with a strategy that might well crash the economy, then him having skin in the game motivates him to do the exact opposite of achieving a better outcome.

            Even if he ignores this incentive and honestly advises the best course of action for the situation (which is entirely possible, there is a lot at stake here that might well overwhelm considerations of personal financial gain), the fact that someone stands to gain from doing a bad job is always a reason to be suspicious.

          • matkoniecz says:

            The idea of having skin in the game is to motivate you to want to achieve the better outcome.

            And he is setup to benefit from the worse one.

          • albatross11 says:

            Taleb has little more power to get his ideas implemented than we do, and basically everyone expressing an opinion has a position in the world that’s affected by different choices. Should I stop expressing opinions on the lockdown because I’m an overweight 50 year old asthmatic man? Clearly some policies are likely to work out better for me than for others. And the same is true for a 30 year old healthy man who’s looking at layoffs in the future if the lockdown continues. We’re all talking our book to some extent, but since none of us have much power to implement these decisions, it doesn’t really seem like that’s a problem.

          • baconbits9 says:

            And he is setup to benefit from the worse one.

            Taleb has been warning about a possible pandemic and the need to set up institutional responses ahead of time since 2007 at least. He is also likely already fairly wealthy, has already probably made a lot off the market drops in feb/march, and would likely prefer a stable world to spend his money in over an unstable world where he has somewhat more money.

      • Enkidum says:

        interpretation of ethnics

        I always knew this place was a hive of *redacted*

  48. toastengineer says:

    Maybe this is a bit late, but:

    In the interest of facilitating human socialization despite contemporaneous quarantine conditions, I have decided to start up the official Unofficial Slate Star Codex Extremely Heavily Modded Minecraft Server.

    As this is a modded server, a normal Minecraft client won’t be able to connect. It’s loaded up with mods that add the ability to build factories, advanced technology, explore space, etc…

    To play on the server:

    Short version: We’re running the Technic 1.12.2 pack; the address is unofficialsscmc.404.mn

    You will need to have purchased Minecraft, and have a Mojang account to log in with.
    1. Go to technicpack.net and hit “get the launcher.” Download and run the launcher.
    2. Type “The 1.12.2 Pack” in to the search bar. Hit “install” in the bottom right corner of the window.
    3. Wait.
    4. Hit “play,” it’ll be where the download button was.
    5. Wait.
    6. Go to “multiplayer,” then “Add Server.”
    7. Paste unofficialsscmc.404.mn in to the Server Address box. Put whatever you want in Server Name. Hit done.
    8. Double click the new entry at the bottom of the server list.
    9. It should just work from that point on. If you have a problem, tell me about it in this thread, I guess?

    Currently it’s just running on my home machine, so it probably won’t be able to handle more than a few players. If there’s actual interest I’ll pay for an actual hosted server.

    Decisions on how to run the server have yet to be made; I’m thinking I want to run it as a sort of build-your-own-civilization anarchy server, but we’ll see what people actually want. For now, uh, consider not messing with other people’s stuff. If anyone wants to be a moderator, ask me in this thread.

    • loaferaido says:

      Just started hosting my own remote FTB server on OVH, it’s performed pretty well. Is the 1.12.2 the same as Direwolf 1.12? That’s what I’m using currently

      • toastengineer says:

        Nope, two completely different things. 1.12.2 refers to the base Minecraft version. The Minecraft mod community had its own little culture war between people who use the Technic modpacks and the Feed the Beast packs back in the day…

    • loaferaido says:

      Trying to join but getting an “io.netty.channel.abstractchannel$annotatedconnectexception: Connection timed out: no further information” error

      • toastengineer says:

        Looks like you ran in to Comcast’s “advanced security.” Yanno, because the fact that I asked them to forward a port doesn’t mean I actually want people to connect to that port. Should be sorted now.

    • mustacheion says:

      Server works for me. Is the spawn in one area, or is it spread out? I don’t see any evidence of other people so far.

  49. salvorhardin says:

    So there’s a new study out of LA estimating a 40x disparity between actual infections and positive tests there:
    https://twitter.com/lapublichealth/status/1252326234077487107

    The Reason article I found this through:
    https://reason.com/2020/04/20/l-a-county-antibody-tests-suggest-the-fatality-rate-for-covid-19-is-much-lower-than-people-feared/

    recognizes, to its credit, the false positive and sample bias issues that plagued the earlier Santa Clara County study, and gets quotes about how and why the LA folks think they have addressed these issues. Anyone know of any informed analyses of whether they actually have done so effectively?

    Note also that in a lot of the reporting of these studies they lead with “the fatality rate may be no higher than seasonal flu!” and forget the bit about “…but R0 is higher and there’s no vaccine, so it probably would still kill at least 5x more than a typical flu season if allowed to run to herd immunity.” On the other other hand, the level of restrictions justified to avoid 5x typical flu season deaths may be significantly less than the level justified to avoid 50x, so which it would actually be is still important to know.

    • Do it in Lombardy. By that low rate of death, you should find that most to all have been infected:

      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-cases.html

      • salvorhardin says:

        Well, it’s (a) not entirely implausible that you’d find that to be true, and (b) also not implausible that the true fatality rate varies a lot from region to region based on several factors and Lombardy is bad on all those factors (unusually old population, unusually low social distancing of elderly people, high pollution, high smoking rate, unusually sharp spike in hospitalizations that overwhelmed the system and caused a higher death rate among those needing hospitalization, etc).

    • John Schilling says:

      I haven’t found more than a summary of the USC study, but its lead author (Neraj Sood) is the #3 author on the Santa Clara Study, and the lead and #2 authors of the Santa Clara study (Eran Bendavid and Bianca Mulaney) are listed as contributors to the USC study. So these can’t really be considered independent works, and there hasn’t been enough time for Bendavid/Mulaney/Sood to have designed the USC study in light of the criticism of the Santa Clara study.

    • MisterA says:

      The problem with this is that unless the strain in LA is a lot less dangerous than the one in NY, there’s no way to reconcile this with the number of deaths in NY.

      LA County has had 600 confirmed coronavirus deaths. Based on this study, that would indicate a death rate between .1% and 0.3%.

      New York City has 10,344 confirmed coronavirus deaths as of yesterday. If that same death rate holds, that means that between 3.4 and 10.3 million people would need to be infected to explain what we’re seeing in NY. New York City has 8.4 million people total, so for the low end fatality estimate to hold, more people would need to be infected than are actually there.

      • nkurz says:

        > unless the strain in LA is a lot less dangerous than the one in NY

        Do we have any good information on whether this might actually be true? If there are in fact different strains with different lethalities in different communities, it would reconcile a lot of seemingly irreconcilable studies.

        From what I can tell, it does seem confirmed that there are different strains in circulation (https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/07/2004999117) but it’s not (yet) confirmed that these strains affect people differently.

      • salvorhardin says:

        Yeah, fair point. There are other plausible-guess ways of reconciling this besides strain differences, e.g. greater severity of NY cases (higher density => higher viral load of infections?) or a different distribution of those infected, but they don’t really give much comfort to other large dense urban areas.

        ETA: or the ratio of “true” COVID deaths to deaths counted as such in LA could be higher than that in NY, also not reassuring.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          Scott Gottlieb said there was no difference in viral load among severity of symptoms. So viral load probably isn’t important.

          https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1251679969408884738

          • Gerry Quinn says:

            If viral load isn’t important, why are there so many deaths among front line medical personnel?

          • acymetric says:

            @Gerry Quinn

            Are there? I haven’t seen that, although I haven’t looked for it either.

            If that is the case, is it just that there are more deaths relative to the general public (this is expected, as they are more likely to be infected than the general public) or more deaths relative to the fatality rate for infected people who aren’t medical workers?

          • Gerry Quinn says:

            I’m going only on anecdata, from news reports etc. Of course the measured case incidence among people in the medical profession will be higher, because they are more likely to be infected, and they are more likely to be tested. Maybe more likely to be reported, too.

            All the same, it looks to me that too many young hospital workers are dropping. Starting with that Chinese doctor who blew the whistle over there.

            There’s no real contradiction anyway, viral content of weak versus asymptomatic cases need have nothing to do with whether the initial viral assault level correlates with deadly infections.

            I suppose asymptomatic cases with a high viral load do support the notion that the damage comes from an excessive immune reaction rather than the normal death of infected cells.

        • Majuscule says:

          I can’t seem to find out if any of these comparisons of density account for differences in the general *lifestyle*. I grew up in NYC and the obvious point to me is not that NYC and LA have millions of people or X residents per square mile- it’s that New Yorkers are way, WAY closer to one another on a daily basis than any other place I’ve visited in the US and even most places I’ve been overseas. They pack into trains and buses and crowd the sidewalks. You visit your tiny local bodega and have to stand nose to nose with the clerk. New Yorkers flee their tiny apartments for restaurants, bars and teeming parks. Our typical proximity to one another is really unusual for the United States. And as much as I love my hometown, the city is *filthy*. It’s much cleaner than it used to be, but New York is still probably the dirtiest city in America and it always has been. Almost every New Yorker will admit this. Every surface in our transit system is inexplicably gross. I can’t say how clean LA is by comparison, but Los Angelenos have more space and most people *drive everywhere*. I spent 3 days in LA and felt like we never left the car. Surely someone takes public transit, but it is a car-centric place.

          I have lots of friends from Cali who spent years in NYC and something they noticed is that there’s a greater cultural tendency for Californians to meet and entertain in their homes rather than in a public space like a bar or restaurant. Maybe not a huge impact, but if your social life skews towards having six friends over for wine and pizza and avoids a bar with 60 people for half the weekends in March, that might have an effect on transmission rates. It’s damn near impossible to quantify this in a meaningful way, but I feel like there’s no great mystery why two similarly dense cities are having different outcomes.

      • LesHapablap says:

        Are the NYC deaths all NYC residents, counted in that 8.4 million population?

        • The Nybbler says:

          No, NYC counts deaths which happen in NYC including non-residents. That bumps the appropriate denominator somewhat, but I think not all that much since there are many other hospitals in the metro area; it’s not like everyone in the area is going to go to NYC for treatment.

      • The Nybbler says:

        New York City has 10,344 confirmed coronavirus deaths as of yesterday

        9101 as of today; the 10,344 was confirmed + probable, which wouldn’t be apples-to-apples. Anyway, 3.4 million infected in NYC is possible.

        • Clutzy says:

          Dont those numbers include some 3000+ that were just arbitrarily added but never tested?

          • The Nybbler says:

            They weren’t arbitrarily added; they were people who died of symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Probably a large percentage did die of COVID-19, but not all, since there are other respiratory diseases. But if you consider them in New York, you have to consider them in LA too; this would give you a higher IFR in LA.

          • albatross11 says:

            Yeah, you can get a guaranteed undercount by only counting people with positive tests who died, but it’s apparently very hard to get tested even if you’re sick, so that must be missing cases.

            It’s reasonable to guess that other people who couldn’t be tested because there weren’t enough tests, but who died of pneumonia at the same time as a bunch of people dying of SARS2 and showed the same symptoms, were probably killed by the same virus. This is how all our mortality statistics from diseases used to be constructed–it’s not like anyone was looking for viral RNA in nasal swabs to confirm the cause of death in the 1918 flu pandemic.

          • zoozoc says:

            As others have said, it isn’t arbitrary. The only reason that I have heard (and I don’t know if it is true) that COVID19 deaths might be overcounted is that there is supposedly a finanical reason to list a death as COVID19 vs. something else (the government picks up the tab maybe). However, the all-cause mortality is up significantly in NYC such that the actual COVID19 deaths are undercounted for the data we have. It could have swung the other way now, but we won’t know until more all-cause mortality data comes in.

        • albatross11 says:

          From this paper, we know that between March 22-April 4, about 15% of the women who came to the hospital to give birth were positive for the virus, with about 88% of those who were positive not showing symptoms. If we assume that’s a baseline for the prevalence of COVID-19 in NYC among healthy people, then as of 3-4 weeks ago, something like one in eight New Yorkers were infected but asymptomatic, and something like one in seven were infected overall. (Also, 3 of the 29 women who tested positive but were asymptomatic when they arrived developed symptoms by the end of their hospital stay, and one person who tested negative when they arrived at the hospital tested positive a couple days later.)

          There are some confounders here–on one side, pregnant women are often already moms and had kids in school/daycare, some hard-hit groups like orthodox Jews and hispanics have a higher birth rate than the rest of New Yorkers, maybe pregnant moms are extra-careful about staying away from sick people, etc. But it’s probably a reasonably good snapshot.

          That suggests that around 3-4 weeks ago, about 15% of New Yorkers were infected, with most showing no serious symptoms. It seems unlikely that’s increased to 40%+ in 3 weeks under lockdown, but I don’t really know.

          Let IFR = P(death|infected). If we assume 15% of New Yorkers were infected 3-4 weeks ago, and that it takes something like 3 weeks to get from infection to death, then a crude but not totally crazy estimate would be something like:

          IFR = (total deaths in NYC) / (total infected three weeks ago)

          That would give us something like an IFR of 0.01, so a 1% chance of dying given an infection overall. But of course, that’s different for different people–the pregnant women who had positive COVID-19 tests don’t sound like most of them were particularly ill.

          • David Speyer says:

            Another confounder — pregnancy heightens immune response.

          • Kaitian says:

            I think pregnant women are not representative. For one thing, they’re all relatively young and healthy. The immune system works differently during pregnancy, which might make them more likely to catch covid or might affect the severity of symptoms. They also tend to have a lot of contact with the health system and groups of people (prenatal groups, childcare groups, etc), situations where you might get infected easily.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Pregnancy does the opposite of heighten immune response.

    • skybrian says:

      It doesn’t look like there is any new information about false positives in the Reason article:

      As for the accuracy of the antibody tests, Sood said validation by the manufacturer of the test kits, Premier Biotech, found a false positive rate of 0.5 percent in 371 samples. In subsequent tests by a Stanford laboratory, there were no false positives. “We think that the false positive rate of the tests is really low,” Sood said.

      The same data already appeared in the Santa Clara preprint, and this analysis is what critics was saying is wrong. For example, here is Gelman:

      This gives two estimates of specificity: 30/30 = 100% and 369/371 = 99.46%. Or you can combine them together to get 399/401 = 99.50%. If you really trust these numbers, you’re cool: with y=399 and n=401, we can do the standard Agresti-Coull 95% interval based on y+2 and n+4, which comes to [98.0%, 100%]. If you go to the lower bound of that interval, you start to get in trouble: remember that if the specificity is less than 98.5%, you’ll expect to see more than 1.5% positive tests in the data no matter what!

      Unfortunately the preprint doesn’t seem to be available for LA, so we don’t have any more raw data.

  50. Betty Cook says:

    A few quarantine notes (Bay area):

    One of us being 75 and male, we are trying to quarantine pretty strictly, so it is now about three weeks since our second massive grocery shopping. Fresh milk ran out after about 2 weeks and we are almost out of fresh vegetables and fruit; apples keep well, carefully selected tomatoes on the vine keep well (three weeks is about the limit), but we still have meat and vegetables in the freezer and a fair amount of cheese. We are lucky enough to have a large yard with fruit trees, some citrus still producing and the earliest peach coming online soon. The most successful of various experiments with random stuff growing in the yard was using lots of wood sorrel together with dried beans to make a meatless ghormeh sabzi. Still have lots of various kinds of legumes; my daughter bought what she thought was a 9 pound bag of pinto beans which turned out to be a 9 kilo bag. Anyone have a good recipe using pinto beans? Oh, and 2-liter Diet Coke bottles, washed and dried, make reasonable long-term storage for pinto beans. Delivery for resupply is possible but of dubious reliability; what you get has only so much relation to what you ordered, and you have to worry about the squirrels getting at things left on the porch.

    I am treating my car as an extension of my house, as long as I don’t get out of the car, so when I get too fed up with the inside of the house I drive around for a bit. Observations on masks: people out walking, jogging, biking, walking the dog mostly don’t wear masks (about 1 in 10 two or three weeks ago, closer to 1 in 7 or 8 now, n = 50 to 100 each occasion.) People in line by the grocery store: about 50% three weeks ago, 80% now, n = 10 to 15 on each occasion. People at the large Chinese grocery: 100% (two occasions, n = 8 or 10). Couples together where only one is wearing a mask: she is wearing the mask and he isn’t, 5/6 times.

    My church has been meeting on Zoom for 6 weeks now. The weekly choir practices and dance group have been meeting on Zoom to chat (can’t sing together, too much lag to stay in sync). My scattered family (four different time zones) got together on Zoom a couple days ago; we hope that for next week my mother (age 91) can get some tech help setting up Zoom from her retirement complex so she can join us.

    Both of my choirs have experimented successfully with virtual choir. The choir director makes a master video of himself conducting with someone playing or singing and posts it; the choir individually records themselves singing their part while watching and listening to the video with headphones; the director combines the individual parts sent to him, if necessary fading out the bits where the dog was barking. The choir can be bigger this way, too–I sent in soprano, alto, and tenor parts for one piece we did. It still isn’t as much fun as singing live with other people, but it sounds surprisingly professional. One of the directors used to work for Apple and helped create the Apple software he is using to combine the tracks; the other has no special expertise in this as far as I know.

    • Nicholas Weininger says:

      How many part-recordings are you getting merged, and how much tempo variation is there in the pieces you’re doing this way? I’ve heard that the process of combining the tracks is extremely labor-intensive to do well, but have no firsthand experience with trying it. If there’s an instructional guide out there to how to do it easily/quickly, I’d be interested to know.

      • Dog says:

        Assuming the person doing the editing has audio production experience and the choir members were pretty good at keeping time with the conductor video, this could take anywhere from ~10 min per piece for an acceptable result to potentially many hours for something really polished. I could give you a brief description of what my workflow would be like for this if you’re interested, but if you’d be starting from zero knowledge I think 95% of the effort would be getting familiar with the software. Step 1 would be download something like Reaper and go through the basic tutorials.

        • danridge says:

          I thought about this a little, here’s what I think my workflow would be:

          1. Import one member’s recording into the software.
          2. Run that signal from an output from the interface through a chorus pedal and then back into an input.
          3. Hit record.
          4. I think we’re done here.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          I’ve never done this, but with digital recordings, a 38.2 second piece lasts the exact same amount of time for everyone, right?

          • Dog says:

            Yea, you’re not going to have any variation in how quickly a digital recording plays back, the length is going to be the same everywhere. The issue is not so much whether the total lengths / recording speeds match, it’s whether each individual recording is in time with the master track. If everyone was in time, it might be enough just to align each track. If a track is badly out of time, you could shift or stretch portions to fix it, or just drop that track if it’s a large enough choir.

      • Faza (TCM) says:

        As Dog says, it mostly depends on how well the tracks submitted by the choir members follow the master recording.

        The good thing about choirs, in general, is that there’s typically some leeway with regards to time-keeping. People usually don’t have to be spot-on, because they wouldn’t have been in a full choir session either; the large number of voices tends to smoosh out the imperfections.

        Assuming the individual tracks don’t have any major timing issues, there’s a bunch of automated tools that can make the whole process of aligning stuff a lot quicker. Cakewalk (previously Sonar; now available for free) has VocalSync – a tool for aligning one track to another via time-stretching – built in. VocAlign is a separate plug-in that does the same thing (check the link to see it in action). I don’t know how the individual tracks are recorded in practice, but assuming that the choir members just play the entire track and dub over that (which is the simplest option), you don’t even have to muck about with aligning start times. This could mean the entire operation takes a couple of minutes per track.

        Of course, the other key question is: how good is good enough?

        • Lambert says:

          Also there’s some big cathedrals where you might be waiting 0.3 seconds for an echo to come back. That’ll ensure that the music isn’t too particular about exact timing.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            Back when I was starting out with studio recordings in the mid/late 90s, the common term for putting reverb on tracks (vocals especially) was “adding talent”.

        • Dog says:

          Interesting, I didn’t know that Cakewalk had an automatic alignment feature. I’ll admit to not being a big Cakewalk fan, but that could definitely be useful.

          If it’s the same choir, people are probably not changing their recording setups, so you could probably set up a template with eq and levels set for each part and cut down on the mixing work going forward.

      • Betty Cook says:

        The number of people in the choir is 10 or 20, some sending in multiple recordings; given that we are all recording in sync with the same conducting video, I doubt there is much tempo variation. I think the director doing it for the first time (and who has the smaller choir) said it took him four hours or more to put it together; the one with a lot of experience indicated that the largest time cost was just listening through all the separate recordings.

        • Faza (TCM) says:

          the one with a lot of experience indicated that the largest time cost was just listening through all the separate recordings

          Aye, that sounds just about right.

    • FLWAB says:

      Mmm, wood sorrel! Minuture Rhubarb, Poor Man’s Salad, Deer Clover, the Forester’s Friend! Many a summer day I spent with a sprig of sorrel between my teeth. The only time I ever cooked with it was to bake it into a huckleberry pie. Based on my memories of the flavor I can see how it would work for a middle eastern dish (tastes a very little bit like fenugreek).

  51. Squirrel of Doom says:

    Where, if anywhere, do the cool sleepy kids order Modafinil online these days?

    • Vosmyorka says:

      Assuming that sourcing discussion is cool here (our host has recommended sources in the past, I think), I’ll say that I have had good experiences with modafinilXL (which at least several months ago honored a ludicrous reshipment guarantee promising to reship if your modafinil is held up in customs for 2 weeks, allowing me to get way more than I actually paid for once the earlier shipment cleared): https://modafinilxl.com/

      It’s where I’ve been going since Duckdose shut down and service is quite comparable apart from the janky website design.

  52. drethelin says:

    The thrive/survive theory predicts it perfectly if you assume democrats think we have plenty of resources and everyone can just afford to take a few months off work and it’ll be fine and the republicans think society is already inches away from collapsing and we need to accept some disease deaths to get the economy to work.

    • pacificverse says:

      Hear, hear!

    • Ursus Arctos says:

      This is a reasonable attempt to preserve the theory, but there’s a worry that the theory is almost completely robust against refutation by simply reinterpreting what the “thrive” option is and what the “survive” option is.

    • No one was saying that in 2019. Post-hoc reasoning.

      And no one’s explained why this pattern is not being seen internationally. What is different about America’s “Right?” Anyone want to take a stab at rationalizing why a whole bunch of people on the American “Right” suddenly changed their minds about whether the government should try and drive up the price of oil?

      I’ve expressed my views as to the source of the problem in the fractional threads.

      • Ursus Arctos says:

        I’m not entirely against the Trump theory, but I think you underestimate the extent to which this arguably matches left/right lines globally.

        I believe that in Canada, the UK and Australia the pro-reopening factions, small though they are, are all part of the political right. Thus even where the political class as a whole strongly supports keeping things shut down, the minority dissenting factions seem to be on the right. I know several reopeners, only one of whom is on the left, and he’s a very weird case that is probably more reflective of personal circumstances than anything else.

        Sweden is of course the great difficulty with this theory.

        • The anglosphere right has a large soft-libertarian sphere, and still retains that after the growth of nationalist populism. Ultimately their claimed values of economic liberty and small government have more explanatory value than the thrive/survive theory. That theory better explains the religious and nationalist right wing impulses more than the freedom and economics oriented ones.

          I wouldn’t be surprised if the right wing of the continent is less involved in shutdown opposition, as it is more nationalist and less libertarian, relatively speaking. In France, there has already been a riot by minorities due to perceived racism and inequality of enforcement of the coronavirus curfew, and that is more associated with left wing concerns.

          Honestly, even in the anglosphere it was initially left wing journalists who were downplaying the virus, and then it switched to being conservatives who carried the mantle of “just a flu, bro”. What explains that? It sounds complex and chaotic. Certain things shift about before they opportunistically crystallize.

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            Yep. The thrive/survive theory has always been an example of outgroup homogeneity bias in action.

            I picture the large soft libertarian sphere as resembling the beryllium sphere from Galaxy Quest.

  53. Le Maistre Chat says:

    Continued from the last OT:

    Nobody ever used teleport [in D&D] for ground level targets, that would be insane risk taking, the standard approach was to only use teleport in conjunction with feather-fall or flight, and target the sky above where you wanted to go. Which also meant teleport was actually a spell for “Travel to the general vicinity of anything”, not for breaching fortifications – porting inside a fortress would always be insanely dangerous, but travel to a city you have only heard just enough rumors about to be sure it a: exists, and b: to tell apart from other random cities is as safe as travel to your childhood home, because in either case, you are aiming at empty skies.

    Makes sense.
    This reinforces the idea that underground fortifications would replace castles for controlling territory. Wizard towers could be above-ground protrusions of subterranean fortifications that act as combination watchtowers, places to take in the sun, observatories for astronomy, etc. for a class of landowning elites.
    On that note, the original Dungeons & Dragons wilderness map had 18 surface forts on a map 180 miles on a side (so about the square miles of Czechia), divided equally between towers, fortified temples and Fighter castles. Those castles don’t seem so secure, though at least they were cited as having trebuchets with birdshot to aim at flyers, and a 25% chance of tame flyers in the form of 1-6 griffons or 1-4 rocs, ridden by Heroes (4th level Fighters). If only it was 100%, perhaps we could justify these as pre-industrial airfields requiring a non-flammable wall and moat against lesser hostiles?

    Heck, having brought that up, I should cite the whole thing, since it gets weirder:

    d6 – Occupant & Types of Guards/Retainers in Castle
    1. Lord (9+ level fighter) with: 1. 1-8 Champions (7th level fighters), 2. 1-6 Griffons (with 4th-level fighter riders), 3. 1-10 Myrmidons (6th level fighters), 4. 1-4 Giants

    2. Superhero (8th level fighter) with: 1. 1-8 Myrmidons (6th level fighters), 2. 1-4 Rocs (6 HD lawful giant eagles, with 4th level fighter riders), 3. 1-4 Ogres, 4. 1-10 Swashbucklers (5th level fighters)

    3. Wizard (11+ level magic-user) with: 1. 1-4 Dragons (any alignment), 2. 1-4 Balrogs (chaotic), 3. 1-4 Wyverns (neutral), 4. 1-4 Basilisks (chaotic)

    4. Necromancer (10th level magic-user) with: 1. 1-4 Chimeras (neutral or chaotic), 2. 1-6 Manticores (chaotic), 3. 1-12 Lycanthropes (any alignment), 4. 1-12 Gargoyles (chaotic)

    5. Patriarch (lawful 8+ level cleric) with (d4): 1. 1-20 Heroes (4th level fighters), 2. 1-6 Superheroes (8th level fighters), 3. 1-10 Ents, 4. 1-8 Hippogriffs (with Hero riders)

    6. Evil High Priest (chaotic 8+ level cleric) with (d4): 1. 1-10 Trolls, 2. 1-6 Vampires, 3. 1-20 White Apes, 4. 1-10 Spectres

    So that’s a 25% or higher chance of an air wing for the other stronghold types too, among other weirdness (a 10th level Mage loses all their monster retainers and new ones appear when they level up?).

    • littskad says:

      For warfare purposes, would the amount of losses inherent in teleporting a reasonable quantity of troops directly into such underground fortresses be considered acceptable for the expected gains? What about teleporting ravening beasts, or fragile vials of poisonous gas, or even just a few tons of gravel? If teleporting a living being into solid rock is bad, wouldn’t teleporting solid rock into a living being be bad, too? How expensive is teleporting?

      • Phigment says:

        Depending on the version of D&D in use, you’re looking at casualties of 40% to 75% on the teleportation subjects.

        That’s pretty harsh. And each attempt takes a 5th level spell slot per person, which means you need a pretty hoss magic user to do any teleporting in the first place, and more than a handful of teleports per day is right out. Each teleport spell takes 50 minutes to memorize.

        The logistics of teleporting large amounts of combatants just don’t work out well. And small numbers of elite combatants are exactly the people you don’t want to risk instantly killing.

        If you found a ravenous beast that was really dangerous but you didn’t mind it dying randomly, you could probably try the Galaxy Quest gambit, but it’s pretty low odds of paying off.

        Teleporting non-people objects wasn’t supported by the base spell, so no barrels of poison or binary explosive components.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Is it viable to teleport cows adorned with barrels of a cheap poison?

          Or bred/buy extremely large but cheap creatures and teleport them to target?

          Teleporting living being into a living being should be bad for both, right?

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            Any sensibly designed underground fasthold in dnd is has air-tight partitions due to the other night-mare warfare spell that is cloudkill. (and alchemy). Building a door that seals if you can build actually hidden doors not being very difficult. Also, such a fasthold can be quite easily be made very, very large since there are any number of creatures and spells with very silly excavation abilities. The odds of hitting something important at random are.. not great.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Any sensibly designed underground fasthold in dnd is has air-tight partitions due to the other night-mare warfare spell that is cloudkill. (and alchemy).

            “Water barriers were often used to protect the tunnels from gas.”

            Also, such a fasthold can be quite easily be made very, very large since there are any number of creatures and spells with very silly excavation abilities.

            Wait, could you unpack that?

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            “Summon Dire Badger” + commune with animals is utterly and completely broken for tunneling purposes.
            So is Awaken (still dire badger). Planar Binding a Thoqqua to a construction contract will let you turn a granite mountain into swiss cheese, and if you can bribe, motivate or compel a Delver, well, it can cast Stoneshape every ten goddamn minutes.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            “Summon Dire Badger” + commune with animals is utterly and completely broken for tunneling purposes.
            So is Awaken (still dire badger). Planar Binding a Thoqqua to a construction contract will let you turn a granite mountain into swiss cheese, and if you can bribe, motivate or compel a Delver, well, it can cast Stoneshape every ten goddamn minutes.

            I can’t find Awaken, Planar Binding or Delver in AD&D, so I’m guessing they’re 3rd Edition creations. There you basically become a god if you write “Wizard”, “Cleric” or “Druid” on your character sheet and the Dungeon Master doesn’t kill your PC fast enough.
            Before that, a Mage would be limited to Stoneshaping 12-13 square feet once or twice a day, when the spell even exists. Druids can get giant badgers when they’re Level 7, so there’s that.

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          The logistics of teleporting large amounts of combatants just don’t work out well. And small numbers of elite combatants are exactly the people you don’t want to risk instantly killing.

          And not just elite at combat; these are also social elites (only PCs can be murderhobos; Mages who can teleport are found in their tower that taxes the surrounding land or deep in the dungeon, what I’d infer is a stronghold of their government). Feudal armies wouldn’t have been able to get in the habit of sending 50/50 strike teams of peers of the realm and court mages on suicide missions.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      From the sociology of Standard Fantasy bandits, I was able to determine they had 1 Mage with them for every 244.4 bandits, with a linear distribution of power level and the least of them being able to cast 2 Fireballs a day. More powerful Mages are landed aristocrats.
      Where to the more magical elves fit in?

      1977 Monster Manual:

      Number appearing: 20-200
      For every 40 elves encountered there will be one with [2nd level] fighting ability plus 1st or 2nd level mage ability. If 100 or more elves are encountered there will be the following: a 4th level fighter/8th level mage, two 4th level fighter/5th level mage elves, and a 4th level fighter/4th level mage/4th level cleric. If over 160 elves are encountered their leaders will be a 6th level fighter/9th level mage, and a 6th level fighter/6th level mage/6th level cleric; and these leaders will have two special retainers each – 4th level fighter/5th level mage, 3rd level fighter/3rd level mage/3rd level cleric. These are also in addition to the group indicated. If encountered in their lair there will also be: a 4th level fighter/7th level mage, a 4th level fighter for every 40 elves in the group, a 2nd level fighter/2nd level mage/2nd level cleric for every 40 elves in the group…

      So every Hidden Elf Village has a 7th level Mage, 64% of the time an 8th level leader, and 15% of the time a 9th level leader (Teleport!). 64% of the time the village has 2 elves who can throw 1 Fireball a day, and 15% of the time another 3 who can. A few of these are healers as well. For every 40 elves, 2 can cast Sleep or Charm Person 1-2 times a day while another is just a 4th level Fighter.
      Besides Teleport, the uncommon 9th level leader has possibilities like Cloudkill, conjuring an Elemental, or reducing an enemy spellcaster’s intelligence and wisdom to a lower animal’s. They and an average additional 1.64 elves per village have daily tricks like charming a monster or enchanting other people into monsters or harmless animals.

  54. Yair says:

    I did not know this was even possible.

    “US crude fell to negative value for first time in history as stockpiles overwhelmed storage facilities, before rebounding to just over $1 on Tuesday”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/oil-prices-sink-to-20-year-low-as-un-sounds-alarm-on-to-covid-19-relief-fund?fbclid=IwAR01E3n_evTmuziWWyORwUCZdQVKPoGaLZAyuJEVm5AcPREFP6M9h6mLHO0

    • Kaitian says:

      Apparently it is the case that in some specific locations, pre paid deliveries of oil are arriving, but storage tanks are already full. So the people who ordered the oil are paying others to take it off their hands. Everywhere else, the oil price is really low (but still above 0), so the average price is negative.
      Sadly, we’re not going to get negative gas prices at the petrol station.

      • Yair says:

        That makes sense.

        Surely it couldn’t e all that hard to build more storage though? How hard can it be?

        • viVI_IViv says:

          How hard can it be?

          Go and build one.

          • Well... says:

            Go and build one.

            If you asked an innocent question in good faith, I’ll bet you wouldn’t find it helpful if someone responded to you like that.

        • Chalid says:

          It’s not hard to build storage, but it is hard to build storage with one day’s notice in the one particular town in Oklahoma that happens to be where people’s contracts are making them deliver the oil.

          Other oil contracts with other delivery terms are not blowing up. And they won’t, because from now on people will be prepared.

          • Garrett says:

            How much of this is a challenge in the sense of “need sheet metal and welders” and how much in the sense of “EPA environmental impact studies and other compliance paperwork”?

          • Matt M says:

            And even if it wasn’t that “hard”, it still might not be economical to do so.

            Whether or not you should build oil storage tanks is mainly a factor of your long-term economic outlook for oil storage, not a short term panic decision based on taking an immediate financial hit on a bad wallstreetbet you made…

          • baconbits9 says:

            Other oil contracts with other delivery terms are not blowing up. And they won’t, because from now on people will be prepared.

            Don’t speak to soon. June contracts for WTI dropped close to 50% overnight at one point and were down 25%, Brent was down 23% a few mins ago.

            The WTI delivery was just the first major area to run out of storage space, world wide production is in the 20-30 million bpd range above current consumption and the Opec cuts scheduled for next month are only ~ 1/3-1/2 that surplus, so eventually without an increase in demand the other storage options will fill and the same issue will crop up in other areas.

            It remains to be seen how much of the overnight price action is liquidation of assets, I bet that is a significant amount but I doubt it is all. This even will effect all oil markets for several years.

    • Chalid says:

      This is a case where terms matter. “US Crude” is not a single thing – it has different values at different locations, different conditions, and different times.

      We benchmark “US crude oil” as the price for delivery at a particular town in Oklahoma, at particular times, and say that what we see happening there is going to be reasonably representative of what’s happening in the overall US market. Normally that’s good enough, but that just broke down yesterday – the town couldn’t accept any more oil on short notice.

      You can note that the rest of the financial system’s oil-linked stuff was mostly fine – oil producer’s stocks didn’t collapse, European oil contacts didn’t collapse, etc. There are undoubtably some people with derivatives bets that are getting really badly burned, though (and conversely some that got very rich).

      I’d guess that the futures contract might get reworked in the future to make delivery terms more flexible and avoid this sort of thing happening. But I’m no expert.

      • meh says:

        why is the producer on the hook if they cant take delivery?

        • John Schilling says:

          Because even in West Texas, they’re not allowed to just dump oil on the ground. It’s coming up out of their wells, they don’t have anyplace to store it either, and if they just shut down the wells the oil in their pipes will congeal into an ungodly mess that would cost them real money to clear out when they’re ready to start production again.

    • meh says:

      what are the ripple effects here? why is this bad for anyone other than oil producers?

      • matkoniecz says:

        It is also bad for anyone producing something competing with oil (electric cars etc).

        It is also an indicator of economy dying, what is bad for everybody.

        • meh says:

          Makes sense that it could be an indicator, but is it causal to any significant degree?

          • matkoniecz says:

            With cheaper petrol anyone making electric cars will have more trouble to sell them. At least in cases where buyers were concerned about upkeep costs. It is caused by internal combustion cars becoming cheaper to run with cheaper petrol.

            Also anything produced for and consumed by oil producers will go down.

            Not sure how important is price of oil in production of plastics, other products and in energy production.

            It is kind of ridiculous claim (and likely unverifiable), but extreme indicators may cause decisions making situation even worse.

          • Matt M says:

            Not sure how important is price of oil in production of plastics, other products and in energy production.

            Most plastics are produced not directly from crude oil itself, but from “associated gases” that come along with most crude production.

            The price for these gases mostly correlates with crude, but not perfectly. Plastic producers should see their input costs mostly fall, but it’s reasonably likely their end customers will demand reductions in the price of plastic itself to compensate.

            I don’t suspect any of these developments will have a large effect on the margins/profits enjoyed by plastic companies (many of which are subsidiaries of large oil companies already anyway).

          • Jake R says:

            I work for a plastics company. Our primary feedstock is ethane, which I believe is usually separated out from natural gas rather than crude oil. I admit I’m not familiar with that part of the process. The ethane is steam cracked to form ethylene, which is then polymerized to make polyethylene. Ethylene is also reacted with chlorine gas to form dichloroethane which is cracked and polymerized to make PVC.

            Currently we have reduced rates and temporarily shut down one unit due to reduced demand projections.

        • albatross11 says:

          It’s an indicator of a dormant economy. How much stays dead when we open back up is not clear–I’m pretty sure it will be many years before cruise lines recover, but even with added social distancing and more people working from home, I’m pretty sure everyone will want to gas up their car again regularly when the lockdowns end.

  55. blumenko says:

    Re: survive v thrive. People don’t even have remote consistency. All that matters is ingroup v outgroup. For example I have seen leftist gays arguing that protesters should not be given medical attention if they get ill and it would “thin the herd.” I don’t think they have thought through what such an attitude towards those with preventable infectious diseases would mean for them.

  56. Kaitian says:

    In Germany, the positions on corona and the lockdown seem to split a bit differently. Of the six big parties:

    – AfD: the far right party has not said anything specific about corona, and has promised to cooperate with the other parties in this crisis.
    – Linke: the far left party has been conspicuously wearing masks in parliament. The only far left governor in the country has instituted mandatory masks in public despite not having many cases in his sparsely polulated Land. Commentators say these guys love conforming with public health measures and austerity due to habits formed under east German socialism.
    – CDU: the centrist right ruling party has gone all in on being the loving parental state that will gently guide you towards health and well being. Science and maths are used to explain policies, and smiling, healthy strong men deliver messages of solidarity and reasonable restrictions. People seem to love it.
    – SPD: the centrist left party, I haven’t heard much from them. They’re asking for more money for people losing their jobs, which is about what I’d expect.
    – Greens: they are somewhat eager to distance themselves from the idea that corona is good for the climate. They also protest that we should be accepting more refugees in the crisis (because Greek refugee camps are a very bad place to be in a pandemic). To be clear, that’s “more” compared to the restrictions under lockdown, not “more” compared to business as usual.
    – FDP: the libertarian-ish party is complaining about lockdowns and constantly asking for reassessment of what measures are really needed. Their statements focus on loss of civil liberties, though opponents suspect they just want to keep the stock market from tanking. Most people on this board would probably agree with these libertarians, but the public seems to be displeased for the most part.

    Overall, political partisanship has not received much attention in this crisis, most people seem to agree with the quarantine. Being close to Italy and seeing the images from there may have a lot to do with that. Of course there’s a lizardman’s constant of people protesting, but they seem to be evenly split between “help more refugees” and “protect civil liberties”, and do comply with police restrictions on the form of protest (no more than 50 people, keeping distance from each other and from bystanders).

    I’m mildly curious what will happen to the traditional leftist protests on May 1st, but I expect they’ll just be cancelled without complaining.

    • Reasoner says:

      Do you recommend moving to Germany? Seems like a well run country.

      (I’m an American. I hear you guys are telling derisive jokes about us nowadays.)

      • Kaitian says:

        I’d recommend it. It’s a nice place overall. Though places like New Zealand or Denmark might be even nicer in the same way.

        The same people who have always disliked the US now have some new reasons to do it. But many still like the US and copy things from there. Electing Trump did hurt your reputation a lot…

        • Robin says:

          US government approval rates in Germany are among the lowest in the world. And Germans can be blunt, and some don’t have a politics-discussion taboo like the US. So there would be some jokes or comments. (That’s just one part of the culture shock.) But I believe the negative view of US politics does not hurt the image of Americans who come to visit. It was similar back in the George W. Bush era.

          For moving, yes Denmark, but also the other Scandinavian countries, or Switzerland, might have a slightly better life.

          • Lambert says:

            I wonder how much of that is opposition to US military bases like Ramstein.

            There were plenty of stickers on lampposts (a good barometer of leftwing thought) calling them unconstitutional and demanding that they be shut down.

          • Loriot says:

            I recall when I visited Germany in 2014 (during the campaign season for the upcoming elections), I was shocked at how pro-Russia the leftist posters seemed to be.

          • Robin says:

            About Ramstein: I don’t really think this is so much of an issue. People who are against western integration and are unhappy with the general situation (a very German feeling, which makes this sentence a very German joke), will also complain about Ramstein, and international-law-breaching drone attacks conducted from there. Not sure how Ramstein’s neighbours are feeling, weighing the economic boost from the base against the environmental impact and military convoy traffic jams. Other than that, I’d say this is not the reason for anti-american sentiments in Germany.

            Pro-Russian leftist posters in 2014: I’m surprised, considering that was the year of the Crimea annexation, discussions about the Olympic winter games, Pussy Riot was still fresh, and things like that. I’d like to see examples of those posters, but I kind of doubt you took photos back then…

            PS: Back to the original issue of political parties: The governing parties are the big winners of corona. http://www.dkriesel.com/blog/2020/0421_parteiengewinne_und_-verluste_im_zuge_von_corona

        • Reasoner says:

          Yes. There are many nice countries… Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands, etc. However I feel there’s something to be said for a global military power.

          I suppose my US citizenship covers that base though?

        • Paul Zrimsek says:

          Electing Trump did hurt your reputation a lot…

          The sneers have changed very little, I’ve found.

  57. Yair says:

    Can anyone recommend some resources/web pages/faqs/articles that can be used to de-brainwash an anti-vaxxer? Is it possible?

    I normally wouldn’t bother, but an ex-student of mine seems to have gone quite far into that rabbit hole and she is a good person …

    • Leafhopper says:

      Maybe unrealistic, but actual study of the science involved?

      My priors make me a pro-vaxxer, but I am averse to trusting the supposed expert consensus on some other issues, like [DATA EXPUNGED], so I could easily understand her ignoring non-scientists/media outlets/simple summaries.

    • Matt M says:

      The first step is to adopt a worldview in which people who disagree with you might not necessarily be “brainwashed,” and that their disagreement is not treated as evidence that they might be a bad person.

      • Well... says:

        I agree with this pretty hard. I would add that with stuff like anti-vaxxing or flat-earth or whatever else, a big draw is the sense of community and kinship afforded by going down these rabbit holes where the one thing everyone shares in common is a belief they’re ridiculed (or worse) for. (For all I know it might be what those people are really seeking — rather than “the truth” — in the first place.) So, it’s kind of a non-starter to frame the disagreement as “you’ve been brainwashed way over there and you ought to leave and come way over here”.

    • Well... says:

      I’m not all that familiar with the anti-vaxxer thing. I can think of, or am aware of, several possible objections to vaccines…

      1. The vaccines are claimed to produce, or potentially produce, undesirable secondary effects (most notoriously, autism) and this is seen as an unacceptable risk.

      2. The vaccines are mandatory, which is seen as a big encroachment upon one’s personal (bodily) rights/freedom.

      3. The vaccines are claimed to not actually protect the recipient from a given virus, and/or not actually contribute to herd immunity.

      As far as I’m aware, anti-vaxxers prioritize these objections in approximately the order I listed, and for all I know they might not ever make claim #3 at all.

      My understanding is that there isn’t 100% scientific consensus on #1, and there are inherent complexities in terms of how the relevant data is collected and measured that further obscure conclusions. Being honest about this might be disarming to your student and allow you to impart (either directly or through resources) that the smart money is still on “vaccines probably in most if not all cases do not cause autism”.

      #2 is a tough one, and might come down to a personal decision to make a small sacrifice (regularly get an injection) for the sake of the wider society around you. I don’t know how highly correlated anti-vaxxers are with people who don’t believe in wearing facemasks, but there’s a clear analogy there. But you could also analogize to speed limits or something.

      #3 is probably the simplest to debunk. We’ve known vaccines work for well over 100 years. We eradicated polio and smallpox with them. We know enough about the human immune system to explain exactly how they work. (Although for all I know if you go down the anti-vaxxer rabbit hole they’ve explained this away as hoaxes and cover-ups or something…)

      ETA: The biggest hurdle when having a discussion like this is probably finding evidence you both agree is valid, and agree on how to interpret, even if you disagree at first on what conclusions the evidence points to. Focus on that first.

      • albatross11 says:

        ISTR that when people looked, they did not find an increase in autism associated with the particular vaccine (MMR) that had the autism scare associated with it. Maybe looking up those studies would help.

        I mean, vaccines aren’t inherently safe–they can be screwed up in ways that make their patients sick. Regulators in the US and Europe mostly seem to do a decent job preventing those problems, but probably that’s done less by extreme competence than by having the slider bar all the way over on the “prevent bad outcomes” side, and all the way on the other side from the “let people have treatments that will help them” side.

        • Lambert says:

          When they looked, didn’t they find that Wakefield being paid off by parents of autistic kids who were looking for compensation or something? Stipped him of his medical license and everything.

          • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

            Yes. The fact that one of the heroes of the modern anti-vaccination movement is guilty of the exact conflict of interest they accuse pharmaceutical companies of is ironic.

          • broblawsky says:

            And Wakefield was trying to market an alternative vaccine to the existing MMR vaccine when he published his infamous study.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        My understanding is that there isn’t 100% scientific consensus on #1, and there are inherent complexities in terms of how the relevant data is collected and measured that further obscure conclusions. Being honest about this might be disarming to your student and allow you to impart (either directly or through resources) that the smart money is still on “vaccines probably in most if not all cases do not cause autism”.

        The problem with phrasing like that, is that you can accurately say that for any medical intervention and any side effect you dream up. Are we 100% certain that…penicillin doesn’t increase the risk of breast cancer? I doubt there even is relevant data. But there’s no reason to specifically think it would. To steal a quote from Eliezer’s 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong:

        Well, I haven’t the slightest shred of support one way or the other for who could’ve murdered those orphans… but have we considered John Q. Wiffleheim as a suspect?

        You might still be right in that those rhetorical techniques may be more likely to get anti-vaxxers to listen to you.

        • Well... says:

          That’s my point. Inasmuch as anti-vaxxers are anti-vaxxers because they seek truth (rather than a tribe) a large component of it might be their being put off by the absolutist and authoritarian language coming from certain journalists, lay pro-vaxxers, representatives of the medical establishment, etc.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            I think the issue is, there’s another contingent of people who will pounce on any expression of uncertainty and say things like, “The things you’re trying to peddle as facts are only theories, you admitted it yourself! Despite all your studies, you can’t even say with certainty that the vaccines you’re claiming are safe won’t seriously hurt us!”

            ETA: Though for an intelligent student, I wouldn’t expect much of that in response to a genuine attempt to convey the current state of the evidence and our small amount of uncertainty.

          • Well... says:

            If someone flat out doesn’t want to be convinced then it doesn’t matter. But if they have at least a somewhat open mind, then the best response is probably something like

            “Yes, this is what being honest sounds like. You’re used to people puffing up their feathers and claiming 100% certainty about vaccines, and I don’t blame you for being skeptical as a result. But I’m not going to posture like that. The way we know things well enough to act on them in a sane manner isn’t by being 100% certain, because 100% certainty is impossible. Instead it’s by being 99% certain while acknowledging there’s a chance we might be wrong so that our minds are reasonably open and we can dispassionately review new evidence if it comes along. Right now, most of the best evidence seems to say we should all get vaccinated. We do, and it seems to work. I don’t reject you or think less of you if you disagree. We can still be friends.”

    • Deiseach says:

      (1) History of immunisation, variolation, and vaccination. Start with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a concerned mother:

      Variolation used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a smallpox blister in a mild case of the disease and introduced it into scratched skin of a previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease. Lady Mary’s brother had died of smallpox in 1713, and her own famous beauty had been marred by a bout with the disease in 1715.

      Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, thus, in March 1718 she had her nearly five-year-old son, Edward, inoculated with the help of Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland. On her return to London, she enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because it was an Oriental folk treatment process.

      (2) Go into the whole “mercury is present in vaccines” and explain how no, we’re not injecting babies with heavy metals

      (3) Go into the history of pre-vaccination diseases. The polio epidemic is a good one, it’s recent enough to have plenty of easily available documentation online. Show her pictures of iron lungs and ask how she’d like to spend the rest of her life in one.

      (4) Science, but not too much – try to avoid swamping her with “and experts say so because!!!!” Louis Pasteur was not a fool (and seemingly not such a plaster saint as later hagiography made him – cf Wikipedia “Although Pasteur made groundbreaking experiments, his reputation became associated with various controversies. Historical reassessment of his notebook revealed that he practiced deception to overcome his rivals”). He was a hard-headed, practical Frenchman who applied his theories and discoveries to agricultural production and made demonstrable, evidential, progress. We pasteurise our foods because of him. Animals and plants are not humans and if they can provably flourish by using his techniques, by a comparison of ‘before and after’, then the same principles hold true for humans.

      (5) Admit the bad stuff. Yes, some people will have bad reactions to vaccination. Yes, for some people, they would have been better off not getting vaccinated. But the majority of people are benefited by it, and the outcomes of the pre-vaccination world show how much worse life for humanity would be without widespread vaccination.

    • Oldio says:

      Can I ask what kind of anti-vaxxer?
      Social conservatives who are concerned about fetal tissue use in vaccines or HPV vaccines are a different crowd from new agers.

      • Filareta says:

        But isn’t only in some specific vaccines?

        • Oldio says:

          Depends on how you define fetal tissue, but IIRC if you have a broad enough definition most of them can be connected to abortion in some way, shape, or form.

    • matkoniecz says:

      https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/index.html looks pretty good. For example https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html (when I heard about vaccine causing narcolepsy I was ready to classify it as a hoax, turns out to be true).

      But it would not help with people smoking cigarettes while complaining about government poisoning them with chemtrails.

    • AG says:

      Ask her directly what sort of evidence it would take for her to change her mind. And then provide a mechanism for her to save face if she does so.

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        This is good advice.

        It’s really easy to dunk on someone with wrong ideas.

        It’s super hard to actually persuade them to change their views. You need to think carefully about how to give them an off-ramp.

        You are working on de-radicalizing someone. It’s hard work but it can be worth it.

    • noyann says:

      The thing is, you probably have to get a minimum of statistic thinking into a directly-linked-cause thinker.

      Take a graphical approach to explain the principle.
      Draw two areas filled with smileys (say, 50 x 50) to represent people, side by side, label them not vaccinated and vaccinated.
      In field not vaccinated, a fraction of the people are ‘ill from that disease’ (unhappy smileys), and a fraction of that, are ‘dead from that disease’ (crossed-out eyes). In field vaccinated go also some ‘ill from that disease’ and ‘dead from that disease’, but their numbers are much smaller.[*]
      Then explain that homo sapiens so far has not found a way to predict on an individual level which smiley you are. But with certainty you can shift someone, by vaccination, from group not vaccinated to group vaccinated. Which group do you want your child in?

      [*] ETA: Of course there will be also ‘ill from vaccination’ and even ‘dead from vaccination’, but more in terms of a tiny fraction of a smiley.

      After that, you can show numbers what happened when large numbers of people shifted into group vaccinated. Some graphics:
      https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination#progress-against-vaccine-preventable-diseases-in-the-us
      https://medium.com/@visualvaccines/graphic-proof-that-vaccines-work-with-sources-61c199429c8c

      I’d completely leave out debunking frauds, myths, etc, unless it is brought up by your student. Confusing details will detract from the main message. In my experience, most anti-vaxxers were people following the loudest expressed opinion in search for safety from uncertainty and unable to do deeper scientific reasoning for themselves — a social conformity heuristic.

    • Purplehermann says:

      Is it possible? Only if she is really interested in understanding the world, respects you as a person and your ability to understand the subject, is willing to discuss, and all the above applies to you as well imo.
      If she squirms away from having a rational discussion, if she isn’t willing to follow thoughts to their conclusion, it’s a lost cause.

      How? Same as changing someone’s mind on anything else, take things they agree with, get them to see how those things don’t work so well with what you want to convince them of.

      Here are some that might help.

      Direct attention to effects on deaths (of children especially) over the years. Read up on smallpox, polio with her.
      Point out all the testing of vaccines going on now, despite being able to rush one and open the economy back up (and that this how governments all over the world are acting), just to make sure the vaccine is safe.

      There have been RCTs to check for damage caused by materials in vaccines designed with anti-vaxxers, look for those and read them together.

      Talk to her about how many people she knows who have been vaccinated, and how the vast majority are just fine, so vaccines probably don’t automatically cause autism or whatever issue.

      Listen to the things she says, and actually consider them, understand and try to steel man them – if you devalue her opinion a priori and you aren’t an authority on the subject, she would be right to ignore you. Truly strive for truth based on the information available to you, with her.

      (Note that vaccines can and do cause serious damage – allergic reactions etc.. can kill, but it’s not an issue that most have and is well worth it for society and usually the individual from what i remember. If this comes up look at relative risks)

  58. Bobobob says:

    So I’ve been thinking about this whole negatively-priced-oil thing. I was always under the impression that the lowest a price could drop was to zero. Isn’t a negative price just a bookkeeping trick to hide an inversion of the buyer/seller relationship? The oil producer is now the customer, and the oil consumer charges a price to take on the oil?

    Anyway, are there any other examples from history where the price of a commodity became negative? I imagine even Dutch tulips retained some value after that bubble burst, and I can’t picture any country paying to have its grain surplus toted away

    (I have a feeling people here are going to point me to stocks and bonds, but I’m more interested in examples of this phenomenon relating to Actual Solid Things.)

    • Lambert says:

      It’s less awkward to talk about selling rubbish to a dump for a negative price than buying the absence of rubbish off them for a positive price.

      Also if a thing you value is a ‘good’ and a thing you would pay to have taken away is a ‘bad’, does that make garbage trucks ‘heavy bads vehicles’?

      • Bobobob says:

        Something with actual intrinsic value is more what I had in mind. But that does raise an interesting question–does garbage have any actual intrinsic value? What if it’s burned for energy, for example?

        • Lambert says:

          Depends where it is.
          Garbage in an incinerator, yes.
          Garbage on my floor, no.
          Ore in a smelter, yes.
          Ore in a mountainside, no.
          Crude in a refinery, yes.
          Crude in a truck, no.

          Sometimes it costs less to get the stuff to where it’s useful than the value of the stuff. Sometimes it costs more.

          • Bobobob says:

            This could be a poem in The Atlantic.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Eh, that’s not correct. Two of the things you say don’t have value usually do. Mineral rights contracts and crude oil sales are ongoing at positive prices, just not in that one place.

            And ore in a smelter would easily go to negative price if you need it gone so that you can mothball the smelter. Likely the same thing with crude in a refinery.

          • Lambert says:

            Those mineral rights are only getting sold because it’s viable to extract those minerals.

            Ore that’s not economic to mine is just mud.

          • matkoniecz says:

            Ore in a mountainside, no.

            This is more tricky. Unmined ore economic to mine has value (mineral rights)/

            Crude in a truck, no.

            Except extreme cases (like currently in some location in USA) it has value.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Lambert:
            All that means is that “intrinsic value” is determined by the value of the end use minus the cost of production. The only difference between crude oil in a truck and crude oil before the first column in a refinery is the cost of transport and storage.

            Natural rubber dropped precipitously in value because the alternative synthetic rubber was superior in end use value and cost of production, not because its intrinsic properties changed.

            But that didn’t mean that finished natural rubber products didn’t lose relative value, because synthetic rubber was better. Finished or near finished goods aren’t intrinsically more valuable aside from having less cost to finish production.

        • Matt M says:

          When you need to get rid of your garbage, does someone pay to purchase it from you? Or do you pay them to take it away?

          “Product with negative value” is practically the definition of garbage!

        • baconbits9 says:

          My vague understanding is that this has happened in recycling markets a lot for things like cardboard. There is sometimes a price for recyclable cardboard and sometimes a cost to dump it depending on the costs of recycling and demand for the recycled products.

          • Matt M says:

            It also depends on the location and delivery methods.

            When I was a kid, we used to do “newspaper drives” for Cub Scouts, where we’d go door to door collecting old newspapers from people, and deliver them to a local recycler, who would pay us something for them.

            But that didn’t mean that most people got paid for old newspaper. Most people just threw it away or recycled it themselves with no monetary exchange involved.

            The recycler was only interested in paying for it if someone brought it right to their plant, in significant volume.

        • matkoniecz says:

          does garbage have any actual intrinsic value

          Most kinds of garbage has value, but lower than transport & collection cost.

          Scrap metal is a common exemption and is likely to be valuable, with some poor people earning money by extracting it from other trash. But in most cases other jobs are more profitable – though note ship breaking operations in poor countries.

          Paper has some value but it is often so low that it is not covering even transportation cost.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease (“cat dancing disease”)

          Japanese company managed to cause so significant mercury pollution that it setup subsidiary to mine it.

          It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation’s chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968.

          Pollution was so heavy at the mouth of the wastewater canal, a figure of 2 kg of mercury per ton of sediment was measured: a level that would be economically viable to mine. Indeed, Chisso did later set up a subsidiary to reclaim and sell the mercury recovered from the sludge.

          (and yes, there was a typical coverup, lies and refusal to compensate victims)

        • Garrett says:

          Potential philosophical point: the only things with intrinsic value are human beings, because they are the only beings which can value themselves. Everything else has a value placed on it by other agents. Precious metals may have a long and reliable history of holding value, but a change in extraction technology (see, potentially: Spanish Price Revolution) could cause the supply to increase and relative value to drop.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Everything else has a value placed on it by other agents.

            Philosophically the agents aren’t placing a value on the other things, they’re placing a value on their internal representation of their relationship to that thing (i.e. they value what they think about the thing).

    • Matt M says:

      If someone backed up a tanker truck to your house and said “Here’s 1,000 barrels of oil, how much will you pay me to take it off my hands, right here and right now?” how much would you offer to pay him?

      Given that you have no capacity to store oil in your backyard, or to move it to somewhere you could store it, I assume your offer would be $0, and you’d kindly ask him to leave.

      But let’s say you had previously entered into a contract promising to take delivery of this oil at your house on this day. Well now you have a problem. You’ll probably have to pay him to keep it. And that represents a negative price.

    • Byrel Mitchell says:

      It’s because these aren’t exactly Actual Solid Things that the price went negative. The price that went negative is for a future’s contract, which specifies that you MUST take possession of a barrel of oil on a particular day.

      If you have no place to store a barrel of oil, and most people shipping it are shut down due to quarantine, and the refineries incoming tanks are already full (because of reduced usage and shutdowns)… then being legally forced to take possession of a bunch of oil in a distant city is a huge negative. And you’re happy to pay someone a small amount to take that giant problem off your plate.

      • Bobobob says:

        OK, I think that gets to the heart of the matter, which wasn’t really resolved in the thread below (or most news headlines, for that matter). I was wondering if someone could have pulled up an empty tanker to an oil refinery yesterday and get paid $40 million to cart the stuff away. If we’re talking strictly futures contracts, then that wasn’t an option, and the negative price is more virtual than real.

        • baconbits9 says:

          OK, I think that gets to the heart of the matter, which wasn’t really resolved in the thread below (or most news headlines, for that matter). I was wondering if someone could have pulled up an empty tanker to an oil refinery yesterday and get paid $40 million to cart the stuff away. If we’re talking strictly futures contracts, then that wasn’t an option, and the negative price is more virtual than real.

          If you had enough capacity to fulfill one contract (at least) and could get it to the specified place of delivery in the time frame (sometime in May I think) then yes, you absolutely could have bought an oil contract, showed up with tankers and been paid to take it away.

          The issue is that there has been contango (futures prices higher for next month than for this month) for a few weeks/months now. If you had that spare capacity you could have already made a couple of bucks a barrel (more than enough typically to induce major players to participate) in arbitrage to buy oil, take delivery and sell a next month contract locking in a profit. Eventually storage filled up, which is part of the reason this breakdown happened. What has not been explained very well is why, given that potential negative price was an expected outcome for several months (yes I can link predictions of zero and negative price eventually from more than a month ago) did it suddenly go from $17 a barrel to zero to negative $40 in a day.

          • Bobobob says:

            I wonder if this situation was so unexpected that absolutely *nobody* made a killing. That would have been the $20 bill lying on the sidewalk, as John Schilling said below.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Some people were short those oil contracts, they made an absolute killing (for every contract there was a buyer and a seller).

          • John Schilling says:

            And lots of people made a small killing(*) buying cheap oil last week, which left them ill-positioned to make a bigger killing today. The $20 bill on the sidewalk is the combination of negatively-priced oil and an empty tanker truck to carry it off.

            * Contingent on oil prices recovering at least partially later this year.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @John Schilling:
            I don’t think that’s quite right.

            If I buy oil delivered today, and simultaneously sell a contract to deliver oil later, my small killing isn’t contingent on oil prices recovering. On net, oil prices recovering reduce my profit a tiny amount, as that is inflationary. Oil prices not recovering might even increase my take, as the buyer of the contract may even later pay me not to deliver.

            I am giving up the opportunity to buy oil for even less (as I’ve given up my storage capacity)

          • John Schilling says:

            If I buy oil delivered today, and simultaneously sell a contract to deliver oil later, my small killing isn’t contingent on oil prices recovering.

            Fair enough. Someone has to buy that contract for oil delivered later, so to make a killing there has to be a reasonably broad belief that oil prices will recover, but you can structure it so that you don’t have to believe that and lock in your profits ahead of the (possibly illusory) recovery.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @John Schilling:

            Someone has to buy that contract for oil delivered later, so to make a killing there has to be a reasonably broad belief that oil prices will recover

            Well sure, but that belief of others is captured in the price of the futures contracts that are currently trading. You don’t need to believe anything at all about the future price at all, you only need to believe you can take delivery of and store oil at (substantially less than) the difference of the two prices.

            It’s precisely the non-negotiable nature of these futures contracts that is causing the current price to be negative. The risk of not being able to deliver in the future is roughly the risk of the buyer becoming insolvent. That’s not a non-negative risk, but it’s not the same as believing price won’t suffer further downward pressure.

        • Chalid says:

          You could have been paid to take actual physical oil away from Cushing, Oklahoma, yesterday. This wouldn’t work anywhere else in the world.

    • Deiseach says:

      Okay, stupid question time.

      With the price of oil being a negative number now, is this the post-scarcity future we were promised?

      Because I remember seeing old publicity for nuclear power generation, one selling point being “electricity too cheap to meter!”

      Well, now we have oil so cheap that technically the producer will pay us to use it. Why am I not seeing loud exclamations of joy about how this will make home heating, electricity, and consumer goods so much cheaper because now the energy costs will be miniscule? Creativity and wealth for everybody – now even a peasant in the Third World can access cheap-as-dirt energy!

      I realise that there’s a lot of “Yeah but you’re forgetting the costs already baked in that it took to extract and process that oil” and “Businesses have to make a profit on what they make/supply” and “Overheads mean that the price is always going to be more”.

      Yes, and those concerns aren’t present in the post-scarcity paradise? It just struck me that for all our rhapsodising about what it will be like when Fairy Godmother AI reifies production so that robots do all the labour and we all have our own set of robots and we are all going to be rich from the magic beans, that today we have a resource that is necessary (so far) for our entire industrialised economy and it’s so cheap it’s almost being given away for free, and there is a conspicuous lack of “yippee, we’re all gonna be rich gentlepersons of leisure!”

      • John Schilling says:

        With the price of oil being a negative number now, is this the post-scarcity future we were promised?

        No, this is very much the scarcity present. Specifically, the scarcity of empty tanker railcars in Cushing, Oklahoma. “Negative price for oil” is the market equivalent of a positive bid for more tanker cars delivered to Oklahoma ASAP. Or for space to be opened up in storage tanks connected by pipeline to Oklahoma, or whatever. All things in scarce supply at the moment.

      • baconbits9 says:

        Oil is collapsing for several reasons, but the primary reason is the crash in demand. It’s only free because people aren’t allowed to use it.

      • The Nybbler says:

        With the price of oil being a negative number now, is this the post-scarcity future we were promised?

        The only reason the price of oil is negative is the men with guns won’t allow us to do most of the things that use it. So no post-scarcity society; the scarcity is just being enforced by fiat rather than price. If that lets up, the price of oil will quickly increase again.

        • albatross11 says:

          Some of the crash in demand is from men with guns forbidding use of fuel, but I think a large chunk of that crash is people no longer wanting to use it. The travel industry was getting clobbered before anyone locked down–airline and hotel reservations cratered a couple weeks before the first lockdowns–because people were afraid of getting sick or bringing the virus back home to their families. The middle of a pandemic is a hard time to sell airline tickets, cruises, beach vacations, trips to the amusement park, etc. Repeat that all over the world, and you get a crash in demand for oil. Also, isn’t there some kind of price war thing happening with Saudi Arabia?

          • The Nybbler says:

            Commuting wouldn’t be down _nearly_ as much without the men with guns. The travel industry was getting clobbered, but they likely would have lowered prices and catered to risk-tolerant bargain hunters (keep in mind that there were cruises that continued to run, with passengers, _after_ Diamond Princess). If the beaches weren’t closed, beach vacations wouldn’t be down nearly as much. There’s no doubt you’d get some drop in demand, but the men with guns are what drive it as low as it is and prevent bargain pricing from bringing it back up.

          • Matt M says:

            And note that as I’ve said elsewhere, the men with guns wouldn’t bother showing up and enforcing any of this stuff it they thought it would happen voluntarily on its own anyway.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Matt M

            You underestimate the enjoyment the men with guns get from enforcing stuff whether or not we’re following it generally.

          • Matt M says:

            Maybe.

            But I think a lot of other people underestimate the risk tolerance of the average American.

            You know what lots of Americans do on the weekends? Ride dirt bikes. Without helmets. For fun. While drinking beer in the hot sun.

            Those people aren’t staying home because they’re scared of COVID. They aren’t even considering it.

            Just because grey-tribe rationalist SSCers mostly know people who started self-quarantining back in late February doesn’t mean the American public is anywhere near that level of terrified of this thing – even after two months of non-stop journalistic assault insisting that they have to be…

          • HeelBearCub says:

            An unexpected, immediate 50% drop in demand is devastating to most industries. It’s not, however, sufficient to get the benefits of reducing R0 enough to matter.

            So, you should probably consider that “the economy would be sucking right now [just less]” and “the lockdowns are necessary” can be both true at the same time.

      • ana53294 says:

        This is more like how when Germany produces excess electricity due to solar/wind, they pay their neighbours to take it, because electricity is dangerous and you’re better off paying to get rid of excess. Oil you can’t store safely is dangerous, and burning pure oil is a risky proposition.

    • EchoChaos says:

      The US government is going to step in and fully fill the national reserve, which is a bit of a final backstop, although we will now be at full capacity in the reserve.

      Which is right when we should do it, but we really are running out of storage capacity.

    • Incurian says:

      Regarding confusion about “value,” it may help to distinguish the naive “trade value” or “use value” from marginal utility.

      In our next portion from Menger, our author expands upon the concept of marginal utility—the idea that separates the classical economists like Marx and Smith from modern economists. Of course, as we have seen, marginal utility itself arises from the very idea of subjective value. Because all economic value originates in the minds of various subjects, and because those subjects act in order to fulfil their perceived needs, certain implications follow about the way people actually make their economic decisions. For one thing, people act on their most urgently felt needs first. And because all economic goods are scarce, economic actors must ration resources to satisfy as many needs as possible. When confronted with a series of goods with the same character, people must establish how much they value each particular unit of that good. Because additional units cannot continue to fulfil the same level of need, the value of any particular unit corresponds to the most urgent but as yet unmet need we may use that additional unit of the good to satisfy. In Menger’s revolutionary terminology, we may find the secret to value theory at the margins.

      Water is normally so abundant that we have virtually innumerable units available at our command, but lost in the desert we might find ourselves in very short supply. Our normal needs for water are met so easily that we value each additional unit of water at a very low level—but in the Atacama Desert (the driest place on Earth), an additional jug of water may make the difference between life and death. In either case, the individual values the water based on the uses they could put the next bit of water toward. If in reality—the actual circumstances of real people’s real lives—a bit of extra water will neither increase your chances of survival nor even quench a thirst, then it is worthless.

      Diamonds have no bearing on human survival, though, and yet they command high prices for exchange. You can’t eat them, you can’t drink them if you’re burning up in the desert, and many of us don’t even find them attractive. The marginal value of each additional diamond in the middle of the desert is extraordinarily low precisely because more important concerns press down upon the economic actor in question. They must revaluate goods based on the real conditions of their life and cause events to unfold such that their needs are met. If you are on the streets of London, New York, or Antwerp, you’ll find it quite easy to quench your thirst and indeed, extra water is usually a burden rather than a blessing. Diamonds, though—those rest at the margins of the goods available to most people; and the more base needs we have met, the higher we are able to value goods unrelated to survival. High market prices, then, do not correspond to the relative importance of a good to human survival. Rather, prices represent the very edges of what we want in life, the constant interchange between producers and consumers, and they will tend to flatten out as time goes on, needs are met, and production expands.

      From https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/mengers-principles-economics-marginal-revolution

    • Vitor says:

      I have an example, but it’s not strictly speaking a commodity. The prices for shipping a container from port x to port y are occasionally negative.

      This is because there are a bunch of surcharges not unlike in passenger air travel. For example the shipping company might charge $500 fuel surcharge per container (the amount depends on what the ports x and y are). So even if the base price were -$100, the total amount of money changing hands is still $400. This makes sense because a fuel surcharge that is itemized separately allows the shipping company to engage in long-term contracts (which fix the base price), while still being able to pass on the highly volatile costs of fuel to the buyers.

      Even so, a negative base price fundamentally cannot be enough to cover the direct operating costs (assuming the fuel surcharge accurately reflects real expenses, which it does). But what makes it work is that most x, y pairs of ports have a very strong directionality of demand, with 80% of paying customers wanting to ship in the same direction (lets say x -> y). When dealing with the rare customer who actually wants to ship in the y -> x direction, the alternative for the shipping company is not refusing the sale and making 0 profit, it’s refusing the sale and then incurring the cost of shipping back an empty container, because that container is urgently needed at x.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        Shipping containers themselves have, at times, had negative value. After trade collapsed in 2008, ports had piles of empty shipping containers on which they were paying insurance and were happy to give them away free. I don’t know stories of negative price, but that’s probably just because 0 is a Schelling fence / transaction costs of bargaining.

    • Edward Scizorhands says:

      Are there long-term oil contracts? Matt Levine’s news letter made me think that the only way someone could buy oil for 30 years from now was to buy a one-month oil future contract and then roll it over 30*12 times.

      • baconbits9 says:

        You can buy oil futures contracts more than a year out for sure.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          Southwestern, rather famously, solidified its existence by making very long term future aviation fuel contract purchases and reaped the reward of being able to maintain low prices in the face of rising present fuel costs.

    • baconbits9 says:

      Not as dramatic as yesterday but a lot of oil price action here today.

      May contract (expiring today) has climbed all the way up to 9 bucks a barrel, but June futures have dropped to meet them currently sitting at ~ $10 a barrel a 50% decline. Brent crude June futures have also been dragged down to under $20 a barrel for a ~27% decline here.

  59. EchoChaos says:

    My feeling is that it is too CW. I was going to wait until tomorrow in the .25 thread to discuss it.

    Anything related to borders and Trump pretty much guarantees some level of CW.

  60. Deiseach says:

    I’m going to presume that Amazon in the US has something similar, but I got notification in my email today from Amazon UK about free stuff available from Amazon (Kindle ebooks, music, etc.)

    https://blog.aboutamazon.co.uk/in-the-community/amazon-makes-books-video-music-and-more-available-for-free

  61. EchoChaos says:

    Fun economic fact!

    Tuvalu was assigned the Top Level Domain .tv

    This is also the abbreviation for “television”, of course. Some large sites that use Tuvalu are Twitch.tv, mlb.tv, etc.

    Tuvalu is a poor Pacific island nation, so they lease out .tv to all sorts of people, which is paid back to the government. Currently .tv is 10% of all Tuvalu government revenues, and the revenue from .tv is the only reason that Tuvalu was able to afford UN membership.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tv

    • Lambert says:

      .io is the British Indian Ocean terrirory.

      But now it’s best known for games.

      • 205guy says:

        I wonder if any of that money is going to the natives removed from Diego Garcia, the naval base leased to the Americans:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Chagossians

        • Lambert says:

          No. The Gov’t doesn’t see any of that money.

          Question

          Asked by Lord Avebury

          To ask Her Majesty’s Government what if any financial arrangements they have with the Internet Computer Bureau which allow the latter to make money from the sale of dependent territory domain names.[HL1060]

          Lord Popat (Con): The British Government has no financial arrangement with the Internet Computer Bureau, which is the Domain Name Registrar or Network Information Centre for a number of domains including for some of the Overseas Territories.

    • Bobobob says:

      Too bad there’s no such thing as the Principate of Resplendent Nauru (PORN). That would have been some revenue stream.

      Come to think of it, PORN has four letters, and probably can’t be used as a web suffix, so my joke self-destructed.

      • gph says:

        There is a TLD (Top-Level Domain) for .porn

        All the Country based TLDs are two letters, but there’s no limit on how long the TLDs can be (within reason that is). A lot of the new ones are full words, like .accountant or .construction

        The newer TLDs usually cost more than regular old .com, and I don’t think users understand or trust them much yet so they haven’t seen wide adoption yet.

        • The Pachyderminator says:

          I suspect the high prices and lack of adoption are directly related. Yeah, the cost of a domain name is usually small compared to the total cost of developing and hosting a website, but the owners of a lot of novelty TLDs are being very optimistic about the marginal value of their product. It doesn’t help that the good domains within a TLD are often designated as “premium” for an even higher price, often hundreds of dollars a year.

          • matkoniecz says:

            I have seen reasonably priced novelty domains, but I was scared by prices suddenly getting higher in future.

            Yes, currently it costs 10$/year. But what I will do when it jumps to 10000$/year?

            Increasing prices of .com domain to gazillion/year would cause a massive outcry. Current unreasonable prices set by Verisign corporation are very profitable, but they limit themselves to prices that are not blatantly ridiculous.

            Increasing prices of .noveltydomainforhipsters to gazillion/year? Yeah, I and 3 other domain owners can either pay or lose our domains.

            Potential of extorting .org domain owners is quite a big story and maybe this currently happening takeover can be even stopped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org – domain was sold to a shell organization, Public Interest Registry nonprofit that held it is now abandoning its nonprofit status. This was done almost immediately after ” ICANN proposed an end to the price cap of .org domains[18] and effectively removed it in July in spite of having received 3,252 opposing comments and only six in favor.”)

            the cost of a domain name is usually small compared to the total cost of developing and hosting a website

            Also, some (my case) are very sensitive to costs. My site is hosted for free (sponsored by Microsoft), development was purely my time, 100% of monetary costs is a domain registration. In .com his cost is anyway not very noticeable but 100$/year would be ridiculous for my usecase.

          • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

            I seem to recall porn websites being reluctant to use .porn domains because it would make it very easy for ISPs to block them.

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:
        • m.alex.matt says:

          All the Country based TLDs are two letters, but there’s no limit on how long the TLDs can be (

          I imagine there are technical limitations. Some commonly used device that only reserves a certain character count’s worth of memory for the TLD. “Sorry, .onetwothree is not allowed, we only allow eleven characters, otherwise people’s smartwatches shit the bed”, or something.

    • Paul Zrimsek says:

      The Union of the Comoros has got to be watching this situation with interest.

      • 205guy says:

        Not sure why. Comors is .km
        Columbia is .co

        • bullseye says:

          It’s “Komori” in the Comoros language.

          The real challenge is to guess why Switzerland is .ch (it’s not from any of their languages).

          • John Schilling says:

            Confederation Helvetica, because the entire nation is populated by very opinionated typography nerds. And the huge army isn’t for defense, it’s for the long-awaited crusade against the People’s Republic of Comic Sans and their Papyrian allies.

        • Paul Zrimsek says:

          Tough crowd.

  62. baconbits9 says:

    Things I’m watching in the market today

    1. Ratio of S&P to Nasdaq- one likely sign of a new wave down in markets is the Nasdaq dropping faster than the S&P. Some hints of that happening now with the Nasdaq down 2.4% and S&P down 2%, and QQQ down 2.5%.

    2. Oil prices. Paring losses in next month delivery makes this more likely to be viewed as a once off event, remaining down in next month and in Brent delivery means more concern about long term problems.

    3. 5 and 10 year Treasury rates, 5 year rate touched an all time low while the 10 year rate opened below the April 3rd lows (but not the all time low set in early March).

  63. Anteros says:

    Every so often in Virus discussions, someone will make a comparison with seasonal ‘flu, although this seems to be becoming somewhat taboo, and the comparison usually elicits the response ‘No, more like Spanish ‘flu!’

    If seasonal flu kills on average 400k people (0.005% of the world’s population) per year and Spanish ‘flu killed as many as 100 million (5% of the 1918 population), then the difference between the two is three orders of magnitude. It’s quite plausible that Covid19 is at least an order of magnitude more serious than one and at least an order of magnitude less serious than the other.

    @Salvorhardin makes the point earlier on this thread that even if the IFR of Covid19 is not much higher than that of seasonal ‘flu (this study estimates between 0.1 and 0.36%) the latter is considerably less infectious – relatively unconstrained, it infects only 5% of the world’s population each year.

    However, the life expectancy of those killed by ‘flu is vastly greater than that of Covid19 victims. This may be even more taboo to mention than ‘flu comparisons, but is surely relevant for policy makers. It’s plausible that QALYs lost by a ‘flu death is at least 10 times that of a Covid19 one. After all, the current virus barely affects youngsters and the median life expectancy of people in care homes is, AFAIK, about six months. I don’t enjoy making the comparison myself, and it would be career suicide for a politician anywhere to forget to say that ‘All lives are sacred, and all deaths are a tragedy, and we must do whatever it takes to protect the most vulnerable among us’ even if the vulnerable being referred to are a week away from death anyway. I think I just confessed to being a mass murderer, again.

    This attitude, that the closer people are to the end of their lives the more efforts we should make to eke out a few more agony-filed breaths came to mind reading Scott’s post about Amish health care – and how little it costs. I’ve heard it said that 50% of healthcare costs amongst the English (i.e. Americans) is spent on the last 90 days of their lives.

    I think these things are all connected.

    • Randy M says:

      However, the life expectancy of those killed by ‘flu is vastly greater than that of Covid19 victims.

      Took me a moment to parse this sentence. But you’re saying people who die of the flu are younger and healthier than people who die of Covid.
      Is this a significant difference? I’d expect the old and compromised to die more often of nearly any infection.
      Edit: From Nybbler below:

      Flu, on the other hand, has a U-shaped mortality curve where it kills the young and the old.

      Ah, so maybe the difference is that youth are particularly strong against Covid but weak to flu. Is there an explanation for this? Something about development of alimentary system versus respiratory system?

      • Anteros says:

        Yes – Nybbler is correct about the U shaped mortality curve for ‘flu. Covid seems to almost not affect the young at all.

        My point was that the life expectancy of flu victims might be, say, 30 years, but for Covid it’s nearer three. But in almost no discussions of the mortality figures is this taken into consideration. I understand why, but at some level I think it should at least be acknowledged

        • EchoChaos says:

          If we get noticeable and chartable undermortality in the next couple years, this is plausible. But right now we are seeing SERIOUS excess mortality in hotspots.

        • Statismagician says:

          What you’re describing is Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL). Along with QALY impacts it’s a standard metric for talking about disease burden among epidemiologists and public health professionals generally. You haven’t seen it out in the wild both for the obvious political reasons, and because we don’t yet know enough to do impact papers worth reading.

          Edit: unnecessary snark removed; it’s been a long morning.

        • Matt M says:

          Based on this tweet from Alex Berenson (note – have not checked the source or verified the numbers myself), COVID has currently killed approximately 1 in every 375,000 Americans under 45.

          • John Schilling says:

            For comparative purposes, that’s one-seventh the normal death rate for Americans under 45 from automobile accidents over the same period. Which is not a thing we normally worry too much about.

            And now it seems plausible that, for Americans under 45, the dominant medical effect of COVID-19 and our response to same may be the discovery that if we mandate almost everybody stay home almost all the time, there will be a large reduction in automobile-crash fatalities and the like. Which I’m pretty sure is something we already knew and rejected.

            It is likely only for the over-45 population that actual COVID-19 fatalities are more significant than the second- and third-order side effects of our reaction to COVID-19. And may be justified on that basis; there are a lot of old people at risk that we don’t want to see die quite yet if we can reasonably help it. But that’s where the argument is going to need to be won, not on the “but young people sometimes die of it too” front.

          • Anteros says:

            @john Schilling

            I’d guess that for people in reasonable health, it’ll only be for the over 60s that Covid-19 itself is more significant than our reaction to it.

            But yes indeed to your point, and reasoning.

          • Chris Phoenix says:

            @John Schilling

            A month ago, COVID had infected a tiny fraction of Americans. If it’s killed 1/7 of auto accidents already, then if we let it burn through all 50 states the way it burned through New York, we will be in a world of hurt.

          • John Schilling says:

            Depends on what you mean by “we”. If we let COVID-19 burn through all 50 states without taking any action, probably something like 50,000 people under the age of 45 would die. That’s larger than the number who die in auto accidents in an average year, but not an order of magnitude larger. It’s definitely in the range of numbers “we” are willing to live with if the alternative means seriously cramping our style or crippling our economy.

            Again, whatever action you think is justified, almost certainly needs to be justified by pointing to the older people who are at risk – “you youngsters aren’t immune!” is only going to get you so far, and not very far at that. The millions of older people at risk of dying, is the argument that might get you somewhere. Even among the young, who mostly still care about their parents and grandparents.

          • The millions of older people at risk of dying, is the argument that might get you somewhere.

            From that standpoint, isn’t the optimal policy to isolate the older people for a few months while the virus burns through everyone else?

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            The British plan was “isolate the old while we let it go through the rest of the population” but then they realized even this would overwhelm the NHS.

          • albatross11 says:

            I imagine high-risk people will be self-isolating as well as possible for the forseeable future, but over-50 isn’t all that easy to isolate. Lots of 50 year olds have to work to keep food on the table, and many of those jobs aren’t so easy to do from home. Lots of 50 year olds have kids in school and college kids coming home from college, and those kids will almost certainly not die of COVID-19 and may not even notice they have it, but they’ll likely bring it home.

            And as you get older, it probably gets harder. Nursing homes are trying as hard as they can to lock down and avoid infections, but that’s not so easy to manage. Those are places that need a fair number of employees to take care of the sick old people. Lots of those employees have wives/husbands and kids who maybe work in a grocery store or restaurant, go to school, teach preschool, etc.

          • @Edward:

            There is some evidence now, from testing to see whether people have had the virus, that suggests that it is much less lethal than initially believed, somewhere between .1% and 1%. If that is correct, the calculations showing the NHS being overwhelmed might be mistaken. Add to that the fact that ventilators seem to be less useful than initially believed, which means the capacity of the NHS isn’t limited by ventilators.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            It’s not just lethality. It’s also hospital cases. Some new news that has my parents worried. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200423/the-great-invader-how-covid-attacks-every-organ

            If holing up the old people was a good idea in March and we didn’t know about it, it should still be a good idea now. If someone wants to make a case for it, I’m willing to hear it out. I mean, we’re going to end up with a lot of social isolation of the olds even during the first two phases of opening back up, so this just means we can keep going.

        • Douglas Knight says:

          My point was that the life expectancy of flu victims might be, say, 30 years, but for Covid it’s nearer three.

          Definitely false. The death rate for ordinary flu among 65+ is 100x the rate among 0-4. It’s J-shaped, not U-shaped. The chart doesn’t give an apples-to-apples comparison, but I’d guess that the average age of covid deaths is lower.

          • Anteros says:

            Thanks for pointing that out – I was indeed very wrong about the age profile of Flu deaths. Not remotely U- shaped, at least in the US. I assume it’s broadly similar across other developed countries.

      • Lambert says:

        I think it’s that a similar strain gives you partial immunity and old people have experienced more of those strains.

    • The Nybbler says:

      I expect that for “the world” looked at as a whole, this thing won’t be much worse than ordinary flu. It (probably) preferentially infects the old. Among those it infects it preferentially makes the old sick. Among those it makes sick, it preferentially makes the old extremely sick. And among those it makes extremely sick, it preferentially kills the old. Flu, on the other hand, has a U-shaped mortality curve where it kills the young and the old. “The world” as a whole is much younger than the developed world.

      • EchoChaos says:

        I’ll put money down that it will cause noticeable excess mortality. It’s hitting a lot of 60-70 year olds with underlying conditions like hypertension that are very survivable for a decade or more.

        It’s definitely worse than the flu and the excess death will be visible, but it isn’t the Spanish flu.

        • Matt M says:

          the excess death will be visible

          Visible how?

          Visible if you read government reports? Visible if you watch the news? Or visible to every individual person?

          I’m still thinking that when this all settles out, a whole lot of Americans will not know a single person who was killed, nearly killed, or suffered permanent damage from COVID. And a whole lot of those people will map to “no worse than the flu.” No matter how big the number in the WHO report is.

          • broblawsky says:

            I know one person who was killed by COVID (age 80+) and one person who was nearly hospitalized (age ~35).

          • EchoChaos says:

            I’m still thinking that when this all settles out, a whole lot of Americans will not know a single person who was killed, nearly killed, or suffered permanent damage from COVID.

            Absolutely will be true, especially among rural Americans. I currently don’t and live in the suburbs of a major city.

            Which doesn’t mean that notable excess death won’t be there.

          • baconbits9 says:

            My wife has an uncle with some underlying health conditions who likely has it, which is the most likely chance we know someone who dies from this. I have an uncle in England whose treatment for early stage cancer has been pushed off indefinitely as well, which puts another non covid, but covid caused, death potentially in our family.

          • Jaskologist says:

            I think the best thing to compare to are the recent spate of opiate deaths.

            It was noticeable if you paid attention, because life expectancy dropped for the first time in decades. But you had to be paying attention. In terms of media hysteria, it was barely noted at all.

          • acymetric says:

            I have an uncle in England whose treatment for early stage cancer has been pushed off indefinitely as well, which puts another non covid, but covid caused, death potentially in our family.

            I’m not entirely comfortable saying that would be COVID caused (I think it is important to differentiate between deaths caused by COVID and deaths caused by our COVID response). We are massively overlimiting medical services right now. I’ve mentioned elsewhere and others have mentioned (either this OT or the last one, and maybe the one before that too) that we’re going to see an increase in preventable deaths from things like heart/lung disease and cancer. Those deaths are not necessary, because the screenings and especially treatments for those already diagnosed could and should still be happening.

          • Matt M says:

            I have an uncle in England whose treatment for early stage cancer has been pushed off indefinitely as well, which puts another non covid, but covid caused, death potentially in our family.

            This is not COVID caused. This is “government reaction to COVID” caused.

          • Chalid says:

            In the long term, if pandemic restrictions are lifted or otherwise fail, and if treatments don’t improve (a big if), then I’d expect rural America will get hit about as bad as urban America. Urban centers got hit first, so it’s been worst for them so far, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be worst long term.

            Rural population sparsity slows spread, but in the absence of countermeasures most people will get it no matter where they live. Meanwhile rural areas have generally older and less healthy populations and also less access to medical care.

          • acymetric says:

            Rural population sparsity slows spread, but in the absence of countermeasures most people will get it no matter where they live.

            Depends on what you mean by most. There would likely still be a large portion of people who never get the disease (usually I’ve seen predicted infection rates capping at around 60-70%, so at least 30% of the country wouldn’t be expected to be sick). Wouldn’t be terrible surprising to find out that some of that 30% was comprised of entire rural communities who didn’t get infected.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            This is not COVID caused. This is “government reaction to COVID” caused.

            Signal boosting, because seeing the two mixed up is currently a pet peeve of mine.

          • The Nybbler says:

            In the long term, if pandemic restrictions are lifted or otherwise fail, and if treatments don’t improve (a big if), then I’d expect rural America will get hit about as bad as urban America.

            It’s not a given that an epidemic that can sustain itself in urban conditions can also sustain itself in rural conditions to the same saturation level; in fact, most models would predict otherwise.

          • Chalid says:

            Sure, the saturation level is undoubtably different (but rural areas still have schools and workplaces and churches and bars, it’s not like they’re naturally socially distancing all the time). Between the less-healthy rural population and the lower rural saturation level I’d not know whether to expect urban areas to be worse off than rural ones long-term.

          • Anteros says:

            @ Chalid

            ‘…most people will get it no matter where they live’

            I’m not sure this is the case, whatever the models say. With barely any impediments, Flu manages to infect about 5% of the population of the world. Spanish Flu got up to 25%. Swine Flu maybe 15%.

          • albatross11 says:

            Also like COVID-19/SARS2, the opiod deaths were heavily concentrated in particular regions and social classes. The deaths became visible to policymakers a lot later than they were likely visible to people in the hardest-hit communities because policymakers don’t have much to do with people in those communities. Working class and underclass whites in flyover country are almost invisible to policymakers and media and academic elites, as far as I can tell.

            Right now, COVID-19 is mostly clobbering East Coast cities, most notably NYC. It’s not clear if that will remain the case–a quite likely outcome IMO is that the lockdowns end, and then we get a second wave which clobbers a lot of red states. At which point, the people complaining that any further lockdowns would be counterproductive and silly and it’s just a bad flu will be the ones in densely-populated East Coast cities where a lot of people (especially in healthcare and other public facing jobs) have already had it, and a large chunk of the most susceptible people have either died or recovered. Three guesses which group determines the policy we’ll actually follow….

          • albatross11 says:

            Matt/Faza:

            Are there government orders demanding healthcare facilities stop doing nonessential procedures?

            My understanding is that most healthcare facilities cancelled non-emergency procedures before any government demand for them to do so. As I understand it, this is from:

            a. Difficulty getting PPE.
            b. Fear of providers catching the virus.
            c. Desire not to become a point of spread for the virus.
            d. Customers staying away for fear of catching the virus.

          • Randy M says:

            Yeah, as useful as it is to disentangle “caused by virus” and “caused by government overreaction*” it’s probably also useful to disentangle “caused by government overreaction” from “caused by corporate or institutional panic”.

            *Or even “caused by proper reaction”, as even appropriate measures can have downsides.

          • Lambert says:

            Also ’caused in anticipation of government response’.
            If you predict mandatory shutdowns are coming, you might want to start winding things down a bit earlier.
            So the chronology makes it look like an independant decision but it wouldn’t happen if not for the government response.

          • Randy M says:

            If you predict mandatory shutdowns are coming, you might want to start winding things down a bit earlier.

            Depends what kind of establishment (some might want to capture rush buying) but sure. Also might want to get PR was caring about customer safety when your hand is being forced anyway.

          • Matt M says:

            Are there government orders demanding healthcare facilities stop doing nonessential procedures?

            I can’t speak for all the orders everywhere, but I know that in Texas, a big part of the governor’s hype tour for his executive order to “re-open” is “allowing non-essential medical procedures to resume,” (in another few weeks, because hey, what’s the hurry right?) which would certainly imply that there are currently government rules which forbid them.

          • Matt M says:

            Also might want to get PR was caring about customer safety when your hand is being forced anyway.

            I said at the time all the major pro sports leagues shutting down before being mandated to do so was a PR move.

            Cancelling a season hurts a lot. Being blamed by the public for causing a global pandemic that kills millions probably puts you out of business forever. It’s a rational calculus, even if it personally annoys me to not have sports anymore.

          • Beck says:

            Are there government orders demanding healthcare facilities stop doing nonessential procedures?

            There is in Alabama, at least. I imagine it’s similar in some other states. A quote from the order:

            14. Effective March 28, 2020 at 5:00 P.M., all dental, medical, or surgical procedures
            shall be postponed until further notice, subject to the following exceptions:
            a. Dental, medical, or surgical procedures necessary to treat an emergency medical
            condition. For purposes of this order, “emergency medical condition” is defined as a medical
            condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain,
            psychiatric disturbances, and/or symptoms of substance abuse) such that the absence of
            immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected by a person’s licensed medical
            provider to result in placing the health of the person in serious jeopardy or causing serious
            impairment to bodily functions or serious dysfunction of bodily organs.
            b. Dental, medical, or surgical procedures necessary to avoid serious harm from an
            underlying condition or disease, or necessary as part of a patient’s ongoing and active treatment.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            Anteros (or whoever understands this):

            I’m embarrassed by how naive this question is. You said:

            With barely any impediments, Flu manages to infect about 5% of the population of the world. Spanish Flu got up to 25%. Swine Flu maybe 15%.

            History.com says regarding the Spanish Flu:

            By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.

            I had the idea that to develop herd immunity you needed upward of 40% of the population with immunity, so how did 25% coverage for Spanish Flu suffice? They were working on vaccines even then, but as I understand it they were basically just trying vaccines for bacteria like pneumococcus and streptococcus, so it wasn’t that they managed to give everybody immunity with a vaccine, as we hope to be able to do with Covid-19 eventually.

          • albatross11 says:

            a. How much of the population you need to get herd immunity depends on how contagious the virus us.

            b. Nobody was doing antibody or RNA tests back then. There may have been people who were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and weren’t ever considered to have had the flu, since they never got sick enough.

          • simon says:

            I had the idea that to develop herd immunity you needed upward of 40% of the population with immunity, so how did 25% coverage for Spanish Flu suffice?

            One possibility here is variability between different people on the level of contact they have with others. Once your most frequent spreaders have had the disease, the effective spreading rate of the remaining susceptible population is much lower.

            So the actual amount of infected you need for herd immunity is much less than a simple SIR model would predict.

          • albatross11 says:

            Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

            Imagine a world where most people live in isolated small villages and almost never leave them, and a few people travel between the villages delivering or selling goods or services from outside. If you got all the traveling people immune to the virus, then the virus would probably die out. OTOH, early on, the virus would spread like wildfire once it got in a few of the traveling-between-the-villages people.

        • Anteros says:

          @EchoChaos
          I think Niall Ferguson of Imperial College notoriety estimated that up to two thirds of those who die this year ‘from’ Covid19 would have died by the end of the year anyway. A lot of them from ‘flu.

          The excess mortality may not be so easy to see at the end of the year. And I seem to remember Scott’s first post about the virus claiming that the death toll was negative 40k and rising (i.e. falling)

          Lots of other things not happening as a result of the lockdown..

          • EchoChaos says:

            And I seem to remember Scott’s first post about the virus claiming that the death toll was negative 40k and rising (i.e. falling)

            This is very not true. Here are excess deaths in Europe relative to 2019 mortality rates.

            https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/g4pine/oc_todays_daily_coronavirus_update_analysis_of/

            The USA looks similar in hotspots like NY.

          • Anteros says:

            @EchoChaos

            Fair point

          • acymetric says:

            It is going to be really easy to make the numbers say whatever you want at the end of all this depending on what you adjust for and how you adjust for it.

            Which is bad news for anyone who hopes people will be willing to admit they were wrong about anything.

          • Garrett says:

            > up to two thirds of those who die this year ‘from’ Covid19 would have died by the end of the year anyway

            Is there a reputable source for this? I’d like to be able to link to it myself.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            I’ve been tracking the ONS stats for the past couple of weeks and currently England and Wales stand at +5.88% relative to average over the past five years (for the year through 10th April, which covers the latest ONS update).

            Eyeballing the graphs linked by EchoChaos, France may still have been below 2019 mortality as of 3rd April. Italy and Spain had almost certainly had more deaths as of the end dates than expected based on 2019.

          • Anteros says:

            @Garrett

            Sorry, I don’t have a link – I read it on the BBC website about a week ago. An article by their Stats guy on the question of how big is the overlap between Covid deaths and would-have-died-from-flu deaths.

            Of course, I could be misremembering it

          • Tarpitz says:

            Niall Ferguson: historian

            Neil Ferguson: epidemiologist

      • Anteros says:

        @The Nybbler
        I think that’s about spot on.
        Of course what we probably won’t know with any degree of certainty, is how bad it would have been if we’d not stopped the world’s normal functioning for a couple of months.

        • Radu Floricica says:

          I dont’ think it’ll be that difficult an estimation, once things settle down. There’s bound to be places that only took the simplest of isolation measures, or if we’re lucky none at all – probably not whole countries, but still regions. And from that we can adjust for age and health system. We’d be looking at retrospective data and a lot of it, so much less uncertainty.

          The interesting question is – how well we could have gotten away if we applied fewer measures? We’re likely to find out that the answer is “quite a lot”, but unfortunately that’s a necessary price – part of what we bought was time to learn things.

          Which is why I’m moving away from being a #stayhomer – I think we know enough to start applying it, and I also think one month of not functioning is acceptable for most businesses, but two is not, and anything over two requires fantasy to imagine it can turn out well. We paid the price, time to get the benefits.

          (How would it look, to open things up? Mandatory masks for the next year, strict no to crowds, a bunch of safety measures that businesses need to respect to stay open. You can use all the free time health inspectors have to check on them).

      • albatross11 says:

        Also, the lockdown will have basically killed circulation of the flu.

    • Garrett says:

      > I’ve heard it said that 50% of healthcare costs amongst the English (i.e. Americans) is spent on the last 90 days of their lives.

      The problem is determining in-advance when that 90 days starts. It’s really easy to do retrospectively.

      • Anteros says:

        Seems obvious now you mention it, but I confess I hadn’t thought of that…

      • albatross11 says:

        I don’t know for sure if the claimed statistic is true, but it should apply more for younger people than older ones.

        For a lot of healthy people, their total healthcare expenditures before their first major health crisis just wasn’t all that high–they went to the doctor if they got really sick or broke a bone or something, but otherwise didn’t have much to do with the medical system. In a normal year, my total healthcare expenditures are not all that high, for example, and I think I’m older and less healthy than most people in the US. (As a datapoint, in the last year, I think I’ve seen a doctor twice–once for a check-up and once for an infected bug bite.).

        Suppose a basically healthy guy in his 40s has a heart attack. In the past decade, he may have spent a few thousand dollars on medical care[1]. Suddenly, he’s spending like a hundred thousand dollars that next month, for the emergency room and ambulance, the tests, for someone putting stents in his arteries, and for a great deal of followup care. The worse everything goes (short of him just dying right away), the more money he’s spending. If (as may very well happen) he dies within a few months of the heart attack, it’s easy to see how that last 90 days would be more than 90% of his total lifetime health care spending.

        Similar logic applies to the 19 year old who wraps his car around a telephone pole, or the healthy 35-year-old woman who discovers she has advanced breast cancer.

        I suspect this is less true as you get older, as a 70-year-old has probably already survived a couple serious health scares.

        [1] In the US, reported medical care prices are wildly inflated, so this would translate to having gone to a doctor maybe 2-3 times in a year and maybe having broken a bone once or something.

    • MisterA says:

      A big part of the difference in scale seems to be based both on the measure we are taking to contain this virus (which we don’t for flu) and the difference in medicine between now and 1918.

      I know Scott Gottlieb at American Enterprise Institute, whose plan for reopening the country is basically the one the White House has adopted and is moving forward with, has said that he thinks this virus is deadlier than Spanish flu. The two big differences are that a lot of people who would have just died in 1918 are getting medical care and surviving today, and the fact that we actually did lock down the way we did, which has drastically reduced infection spread and mortality.

      • The Nybbler says:

        Spanish flu had an estimated IFR of 10%, and furthermore killed the young and young adult as well as the old (a “w” shaped mortality curve). We don’t actually have a treatment for COVID-19. Anyone who thinks COVID-19 is deadlier than the Spanish Flu isn’t looking at the data.

        • Kaitian says:

          We may not have a cure for Covid-19, but we sure do have a lot of treatments for things like clearing fluid from the lungs, reducing fever, stabilizing heart rhythm, helping with breathing and treating any opportunistic bacterial infections. Without any of these things, covid would be much deadlier than it is now (probably still not as bad as Spanish flu, because most young people with covid don’t need those treatments).

        • MisterA says:

          Right, the argument is that it’s as Kaitian said – all the people who go to the hospital with COVID-19 but ultimately recover? In 1918 they just die.

      • Matt M says:

        Most of the people COVID is killing wouldn’t have even been alive in 1918 because something else would have already killed them by the time they were that old…

    • Deiseach says:

      This attitude, that the closer people are to the end of their lives the more efforts we should make to eke out a few more agony-filed breaths

      Not to be picking on you, but this particular phrase hit me hard. Because today I got an email from an online acquaintance (from another site where I used to hang out) who is suffering from ALS and they were describing their breathing problems:

      My breathing was really bad over the weekend. My chest muscles and diaphragm (the thin muscle that stretches under your lungs, allowing them to expand so you can get a deep breath) are very weak now. I was taking very shallow breaths, leading to foggy thinking and very low energy. (It’s still the same as I write this–it’s taking me a very long time to write this email. I have to keep stopping to rest. Crazy, huh?) I emailed my doc (actually, his nurse. We all know that nurses do the majority of the work!) yesterday morning with my symptoms. They contacted my respiratory therapist, who came over and measured my breathing–both my inhaling and exhaling strength. My numbers yesterday were a little less than half of what they were in January. Pas bon. No bueno. Not good.

      [The respiratory therapist] said this was a very drastic drop, and that she would expedite an order for a Trilogy ventilator for me. This is a portable machine with a mask I will wear that basically does my breathing for me. I will use it when I sleep, when I lie down to rest (which is more and more frequent–a couple times a day), and if I’m just sitting in my chair. In others words, most all of the time. Please pray it gets here soon.

      This is somebody who is not (yet) trying to “eke out a few more agony-filled breaths”, and they’re prepared that their death is inevitable, be it in a few months or maybe even a year’s time. But it’s hitting me right at the moment, so any talk about respiratory distress – please forgive me – comes across as a little glib or even heartless, where it’s not faceless numbers but real people who are suffering.

    • edmundgennings says:

      The flu does hit those younger than one worse than it hits teens, but those younger than one are still two orders of magnitude safer than those over 85.

      https://www.econlib.org/who-are-all-the-people-dying-of-flu/

      • Anteros says:

        Douglas knight also pointed out the same thing above – my understanding of Flu deaths was pretty off-beam..
        Thanks for the link.

    • Creutzer says:

      This may be an area where the QA in QALY makes a huge difference. If COVID-19 has long-term sequelae like those found in SARS, let alone those anecdotally found with COVID-19 (lung damage that lasts well beyond the illness even ind milder cases; may yet heal, or maybe not), then the picture should look quite different.

  64. Edward Scizorhands says:

    People here were watching patio11’s twitter for his prediction from March 21. He’s published it now

    https://www.kalzumeus.com/2020/04/21/japan-coronavirus/

    • Douglas Knight says:

      This is a big problem about predicting factual issues.

      It looks to me that to the extent that he was making a interesting, precise prediction, he was wrong. Sure, Japan was massively undercounting, but were they undercounting any more than any western country? (except Germany) Cases were increasing 8% per day and they have continued to increase 8% per day. Deaths were also increasing 8% per day and they have continued to increase 8% per day (now up to 10% per day for the past 10 days). The numbers were basically correct. The best way to forecast the future was to trust the numbers and extrapolate the exponential. The increasing outbreak did not overwhelm the cluster-based methods, and grow even faster, probably because the cluster-based methods weren’t actually doing anything. Were there “widely geographically distributed outbreaks of coronavirus”? I don’t know, but doesn’t seem to have helped his predictions.

      The most precisely correct thing to say was: these numbers are right, and exponential growth is bad. 8% increase per day is unacceptable. The consensus that Japan was “weathering the coronavirus situation well” was contradicted by the existing data. The data predicted that with no more action, 200 people would die in the next month, and then 2,000, and then 20,000, …
      In as much as people weren’t making a prediction at all, they were making a bad prediction. But it’s hard to point out that failure to them. And if he had said that, would he have gotten any reaction? Perhaps it was more effective to claim that the numbers were wrong.

      • Chris Phoenix says:

        I think you are really missing the important points here. There are many lessons we can and should learn from this – in order to, as Harry Potter said, “change and be less stupid next time.”

        At the time he wrote the white paper, most policy makers did not know that Japan was undercounting. The numeric predictions were the least important part of this story.

        He and his colleagues spotted a major problem, did the research and math, wrote a white paper, and got it in front of people who were influenced by it to make better decisions.

        They probably saved thousands of lives with a few days of work by 4 people and less than $2000. And it was very low-hanging fruit. We should be doing a post-bonum on this, and studying the post-bonum, to see how to be more effective at mitigating policy disasters.

        • Douglas Knight says:

          If numbers were not important, why do you think “research” and “math” was important? Since accurate research didn’t happen, it’s damn good it didn’t matter.

          Have you learned nothing from what happened to Drexler?

  65. L (Zero) says:

    Shoutout to Richard Clarke for proposing a Black Swan board.

  66. albatross11 says:

    Does anyone know what’s going on with this article?. The claim (I’ve seen it elsewhere) is that the feds are intercepting a lot of PPE headed for hospitals and comandeering it for some other use. If that’s true, it’s a big deal and we need to know what’s going on[1].

    So far about 0% of the useful and effective response to this virus seems to be coming from the federal government. The case for lots of centralized power and control and top-down responses to the virus seems to be really weak based on the way things have gone here. By contrast, various state and local officials and private labs seem to have managed to do a lot better. Is there maybe some way we could take this and decide to take some power and money away from the agencies that failed and hand it to the ones that succeeded?

    My gloomy prediction is that somehow, this will all necessitate an increase in power and funding and centralization of authority on all things pandemic and public health, which Congress will happily vote to support and we’ll end up with an even more restricted and inept response to the next disaster.

    More broadly, I’ve become enormously more gloomy about the competence of the relevant federal agencies, and about our ability to take any kind of useful action at the federal level. As best I can tell, the feds have mainly worked to prevent people responding effectively to the pandemic, and Congress has managed to vote some money for the public and a whole lot more money to a bunch of large companies with effective lobbyists. And they probably can’t *not* grease the palms of their donors and lobbyists–it’s just not how they work.

    [1] I suspect there’s probably a fair bit of local corruption going on–someone in DHS reselling the PPE or taking a bribe to route the PPE to someone else. If that’s going on, hopefully when this is all over, the nation’s federal prisons will have another few dozen guests formerly in the PPE-hijacking-and-resale business.

    • matkoniecz says:

      Does anyone know what’s going on with this article?. The claim (I’ve seen it elsewhere) is that the feds are intercepting a lot of PPE headed for hospitals and comandeering it for some other use. If that’s true, it’s a big deal and we need to know what’s going on.

      According to the quoted article FBI decided to not intercept shipment after verifying that it was actually destined to a hospital.

      I arrived by car to make the final call on whether to execute the deal. Two semi-trailer trucks, cleverly marked as food-service vehicles, met us at the warehouse. When fully loaded, the trucks would take two distinct routes back to Massachusetts to minimize the chances that their contents would be detained or redirected.

      (…)

      Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure.

      I understand that interacting with FBI is scary but in this case I see no problems from any side.

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        This is not the first story of its type. Before the story began, the protagonists were shipping the PPE in food containers in order to stop the Feds from finding and seizing it for — well, we don’t know.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Note I am not claiming that feds are managing it well. I am claiming that this specific story is not even claiming that anything wrong happened.

          “they should magically know that I am trustworthy” is not a viable demand for obvious reasons.

          And, yes – what lead to this situation is mismanagement, hospitals should not be forced into such bizarre schemes and people met at warehouses to buy PPE transported in food trucks.

        • Deiseach says:

          Yeah, when you’re saying “we disguised our trucks as something else and worked out routes that we wouldn’t be stopped and inspected”, that is screaming “maybe we’re trying to bring in something other than harmless and indeed necessary medical equipment”.

          I don’t see how, if you set up to avoid things and make yourself look like a criminal enterprise, you can then be very surprised if you’re treated like a criminal enterprise.

        • albatross11 says:

          In order to stop the PPE they were buying for their hospital from being stolen by the feds, they had to get their congressman involved. That sounds like shit that happens in banana republics, and if it’s happening here then some people need to lose their jobs and probably end up spending a decade or two in prison.

          • The Nybbler says:

            This is the _purpose_ of the Defense Production Act, which plenty of people were demanding be invoked. It allows the Federal Government to reallocate essential resources (which are whatever they say they are, and in this case include PPE) as they see fit.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            That’s fine, as long as they then fill the PPE needs (and mandate increased immediate production).

            They don’t seem to actually be doing either.

            They also need to effectively communicate how their strategy has changed from “You are on your own, the stockpile isn’t yours and we aren’t shipping clerks” to … whatever it is now.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            I wouldn’t mind at all if the Federal Government threw a lot of weight around to get companies to do the things that need doing. Who can make swabs? Who can run tests? Who is making sure that people have the things that they need?

            It’s the kind of thing that should have transparency, and not “hey, where did our PPE go?”

          • The Nybbler says:

            Sorry, you call up Leviathan, and it behaves like the beast it is, not like the beast you would like it to be. To the feds, someone sneaking around with PPE looks exactly like “someone trying to evade our rules on PPE distribution”.

          • matkoniecz says:

            In order to stop the PPE they were buying for their hospital from being stolen by the feds, they had to get their congressman involved.

            Note that they have not described whatever they attempted to do anything else with Homeland except getting congressman involved.

            If they solely got congressman involved without earlier steps then it is not proving anything.

            If they tried also something else before that step, then why it is not mentioned in the article?

            @Edward Scizorhands

            It’s the kind of thing that should have transparency, and not “hey, where did our PPE go?”

            Yes. It is not a war against an intelligent enemy, secrecy solves no useful purpose.

            Preferably, make entire tracking system of this goods public. Or at least publish (daily or hourly) dump of warehouse database and raport of materials being bought/requisitioned/moved/sold/dispensed/destroyed.

            Also, guidelines for collecting/distribution should be made available to public.

          • Matt M says:

            Sorry, you call up Leviathan, and it behaves like the beast it is, not like the beast you would like it to be.

            This. These complaints strike me as similar to the classic “communism works in theory lament.”

            The reason many of us oppose central planning is because we understand that this is the way central planning actually works, not the utopian fantasy you have where it works perfectly and causes no negative consequences anywhere.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            We already have central planning, since the Feds are seizing PPE shipments, that were bought and paid for and promised under contract law. Where did those shipments end up?

            What we have right now is the worst of both worlds. We have governors trying to figure out how international supply chains work to get tests from South Korea, and those governors trying to outbid each other to get supplies. And then maybe the Feds seize the shipment anyways.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Department of Homeland Security is distinct from FBI, right? I read it as “we proved again to be a legitimate buyers”.

          And in interpreted “Only some quick call” as “we used this method other than other methods because it was easier”. If they actually demonstrated to Homeland that they are from hospital and it was ignored then it is problematic, but it is not mentioned in the story.

          “they should magically know that I am trustworthy” is not a viable demand for obvious reasons.

          And I agree that government agencies should cooperate rather than expect people to explain the same for N times.

      • Christophe Biocca says:

        Maybe I’m stupid, but why does the FBI care about the destination of the masks?

        I can see a few reasons why the Feds might intercept/seize a shipment:

        – It’s not actually masks, but some illegal goods.
        – It’s stolen property.
        – etc.

        But none of them have anything to do with who the buyer is.

        • matkoniecz says:

          Not sure is it something that FBI can/should do legally but

          – ensuring that medical supply that is in high demand is delivered to hospitals (especially where there are entire containers of it) rather to places where it is not actually needed
          – blocking price gouging
          – monitoring trade of important medical supplies

          seems to me as something within competence of a government, especially during pandemic.

          It may be possible that FBI is not supposed to do that and exceeded their bounds.

    • Christophe Biocca says:

      LA Times has decent-ish coverage of this: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies

      It seems to just be the introduction of a command economy for US medical supplies. The examples here all involve supplies meant for hospitals actually being seized so this is not just a case of blocking other, “illegitimate” acquirers.

      If this is frequent enough, that would explain the whole “disguising delivery trucks to avoid detection” gambit. Feds can’t seize supplies if they don’t know about them.

      • albatross11 says:

        Maybe US hospitals could import some experts from Venezuelan hospitals on how to deal with corrupt and incompetent federal officials trying to run a command economy while keeping their hospital functioning.

    • iamnoah says:

      So far about 0% of the useful and effective response to this virus seems to be coming from the federal government. The case for lots of centralized power and control and top-down responses to the virus seems to be really weak based on the way things have gone here.

      While this could be true in the US, please note that many other countries have actual top-down leadership who have saved the day. New Zealand has geographical advantages, but looks like it will also avoid an actual community outbreak thanks to effective top-down response (in part because it is very well coordinated with local authorities.)

      • EchoChaos says:

        I am suspicious that this is a just-so story based on strong geographic advantages.

        The technocratic governments of France and the UK got absolutely clobbered by this.

        Germany definitely looks like it’s done well, but I think for the most part postmortems will show who actually did well.

        • Creutzer says:

          Austria and the Czech Republic are doing well, too, and indeed far better than Germany because they started earlier. They are more centralised than Germany – but also much smaller. It seems to me that smaller countries with centralised top-down action do better, which, if you think about it, is very natural.

          • Robin says:

            In Greece, they have cancelled the carnival as early as 26 February. They just had around 2200 cases and 116 deaths so far.

            Remember, that article which urged us to act fast, came out on 10 March. Remember Chart 23 about what a difference one day makes.

            I wish in Germany they had cancelled the carnival in Heinsberg or the strong beer party in Tirschenreuth. Or that open door church in Northern France.

          • Creutzer says:

            Yes, but whether taking action earlier makes you perform better is not at issue, so this is a distraction. The question at issue is whether more centralised countries are doing better (very possibly by being able to pluck up their courage and taking measures earlier). Is Greece a relatively centralised country?

          • Robin says:

            OK, if that is what you’re after, I’d say Greece is another score for “centralized”.
            But I’m not sure the distinction centralized / federal is that decisive. Germany is federal, but they have managed to find a consensus of the minister presidents fairly well.

            I wouldn’t call the UK government “technocratic”, though, and Northern France had some bad luck with a superspreader event.

    • Chris Phoenix says:

      States are also centralized control. The fact that some states respond effectively shows that centralized control can work.

      The fact that other states are full of tragic disaster shows that truly local response is not sufficient.

      This makes it very important to understand why central control works or doesn’t work, and change governments so that they become less dysfunctional.

      In the case of the Federal government, it’s pretty obvious where a lot of the dysfunction comes from. I don’t know if it is fixable. I don’t know the right response if it is not.

  67. proyas says:

    Why do so many dams not have hydroelectric turbines? It seems wasteful to build a dam and not to install at least one turbine to generate electricity.

    • matkoniecz says:

      Where it happens? AFAIK it is not happening in Poland. Even nearby weir has small 3MW hydroelectric power station ( https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopie%C5%84_Wodny_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko ).

    • Douglas Knight says:

      I think that your premise is incorrect. When people build dams in the era of electricity, they do build turbines. Why else would they build a dam? For a reservoir? I believe that reservoirs do have turbines.

      Hydropower is very overrated because people equivocate between different types of plants. Its value is its flexibility, but only the largest plants are flexible. Turbines that run at the whim of the river are of little value. Ones that can choose to run can do a daily cycle and run only at peak time. Best of all are those that can run backwards and store electricity generated elsewhere. These really are great, but I think that they are built pretty much everywhere they can be.

      There are many abandoned mill dams, before electricity. Should they be retrofitted? It’s marginal, but maybe it’s because people are unaware of the necessary design, not a turbine, but a reverse Archimedes screw. (The biggest plant on the chart is 1/10 as big as matkoniecz’s “small” plant.)

      • HeelBearCub says:

        When people build dams in the era of electricity, they do build turbines.

        I don’t think this is likely to be correct.

        According to ICOLD less than 20% of world’s large dams are used for hydroelectric generation.

      • Lambert says:

        The other reason for dams is to prevent flooding downstream.

        You build the dam such that water can only flow out at a limited rate above the normal flow rate of the river. Normally, the reservoir is fairly empty, but when a rainstorm comes or a load of snow melts, it fills up the reservoir. The water then flows out at a much lower rate than if the dame weren’t there.

        #flattenthecurve?

    • Well... says:

      I’ve thought the same thing about wind turbines in windy places, solar panels in sunny places, even turnstiles in high-traffic places. My guess is it’s just not worth it to the people who’d install them. Let’s say it costs $X to install a device that captures ambient energy, such as a turbine, and hook it up to something that can store and/or transmit power, but you don’t expect to recoup the investment for Y years. Meanwhile you could take that same $X and spend it some other way where you will recoup the investment in <Y years. You'll take the second option. (Keep in mind the turbine also has to be maintained.)

      • matkoniecz says:

        I am curious about cost of turbines vs cost of dam.

        It it would be 200 million for dam and its upkeep, 1 million for turbines/power lines/additional maintenance then most of costs is already spend anyway.

        It it would be 200 million for dam and its upkeep, 800 million for turbines/power lines/additional maintenance then it is less obvious that it would be a great deal.

      • gbear605 says:

        Turnstiles don’t seem like a good idea to me. They’re basically just a very low efficiency form of converting energy from food into electricity. You might as well burn the food. Of course, sometimes people *are* trying to burn energy: exercise. And in those cases, it does make sense to convert it back into electricity if possible, which is often done with some exercise machines. In a home gym, the converting process is too high cost for the gain, but in gyms they usually do have this. The gym at my university was very proud of running the whole building on primarily human generated electricity.

    • FLWAB says:

      Others have mentioned the many alternative uses for a dam than hydroelectric power. Another thing to note is that for a dammed reservoir to work efficiently as a source of hydroelectric power it needs certain characteristics.

      On the property I grew up on we had a small but reasonably sized creek. My dad was interested in putting up a dam (possibly to help flooding issues, I can’t remember) and wondered if it could generate power at a profit. My grandfather (who was a career Boeing engineer) did the math for him and found out that in order to make economic sense we would need something like a couple hundred feet of water depth in the reservoir, which would naturally require an enormous dam. I think he worked it out that we would either need a dam several hundred feet high or a dam twenty feet high but two hundred feet across or something ridiculous like that. So if you’re building a dam for flood control or irrigation there’s a good chance it won’t have the draw necessary for profitable power generation.

    • ECD says:

      Historically? Because there was an excess of power in the area, a lack of relevant expertise and it’s a lot harder than building a pure flood control structure.

      What aren’t the many non-powered dams having power generation added? A bunch of reasons. Congress is trying to push this, with various things to try to streamline FERC licensing and combine reviews for people who want to put power (or extra power) on Corps of Engineer dams.

      However, it’s still a painful process, especially in any area with ESA listed fish. You’re often better off just not touching anything until you have to do your FERC re-licensing. Also, if you’re looking at installation of new power, you’ll need to do a review to show your changes are safe. That’s quite likely to show that your dam isn’t up to snuff, which non-federal entities don’t want to know.

      Plus, even if you get the generation in, you need to comply with NERC regulations on power generation and distribution. This isn’t bad, if you’re a power generating company. It’s terrible if you’re a flood control district.

      Generally it’s a combination of hard to do safely, regulatory difficulty and coordination issue (as very few power transmission companies or generation companies actually own non-powered dams). And most of the dams I’m thinking of are either privately owned, or owned by local governments (flood control districts, irrigation control districts, etc.) which lack significant funding. Also profit is a lot lower than you might think.

    • CatCube says:

      What @ECD said.

      When you say “efficiency,” you’re probably just thinking of it in terms of efficiency for energy, but you have to consider efficiency for money instead. Many dams are not capable of producing power at a profit–many times not an economic profit, but sometimes not even an accounting profit.

      It’s not just a matter of tossing a bitty little turbine onto a dam and going “Whee, electricity!” at the scale you’re probably asking about. Now, there are places you can do that. If you’re looking to power something around your house, or you have a small remote site where it’s cost-prohibitive to run a line for commercial power, picohydro companies can supply you with options that may be a lot cheaper than a motor-generator set and that may be more reliable than solar. However, if you’re going to actually *sell* the power, the power company’s not interested in little quantities like this, as it’s not worth running lines out to get it.

      The amount of power you can generate is a function of head over the turbine (higher dam=more power) and the flowrate through the turbine (river with more flow=more power). So to get a salable amount of power, you’ll need some combination of a good-height dam and large amount of flow–you can trade off between these, but at this point you’re talking major structures, both a larger dam and larger powerhouse. At this scale, you’re not dealing with a bitty little flowrate that’s a rounding error compared to the dam (like the picohydro example above), it’s a major water passage that has to be considered as you actively manage the system.

      Firstly, you can’t just run a unit that size willy-nilly. The generator will overspeed if it’s not loaded, so you have to have a reliable connection to the power grid. For a large unit, you need a correspondingly large connection. The grid managers don’t want you to just run it whenever, since they need to schedule the power. So the generator needs to be run on a schedule.

      However, you can’t schedule the water. Every drop of water goes two one of two places: through your dam and to the tailrace, or into storage (a rise in forebay). But remember that the power produced is a function of head (i.e., forebay height) and flowrate. So the amount of power you can produce is going to have to be determined in a relatively short time horizon. You know what your forebay is, and you know what the inflow is, but you have to balance the power production with how that will cause your forebay to change. If you have to produce less power that would occur with the inflow at that head, you’re going to raise the forebay–and eventually you’ll run out. If you produce less, you’ll draft the reservoir–and can also eventually run out in that direction. If you fuck this up, you can kill a *lot* of people.

      Plus, you often have other requirements. As @ECD mentioned, there may be ESA-listed fish in your river, and you have to make sure you have minimum flowrates for preserving their habitat. Or you may be supplying water to a city downstream. Together, these mean you want to be careful about letting your forebay get too low, as once you reach dead pool you become run-of-the-river and can’t service these purposes. Or, you may also have flood-risk mitigation as another authorized purpose, and for that you need to provide a certain amount of empty space in the reservoir to absorb a flood, so you can’t let it get too high. So there’s a significant amount of effort in calculating how much power you can produce on a day-to-day basis and balancing that with how much can be used. On top of all of this, your powerhouse is a water passage through the dam: you have maintenance responsibilities for it, since it’s controlling water.

      The upshot of all of this: all of these things are somebody’s (or lots of sombodies’) job. This isn’t something that can be done on a shoestring, as you’re controlling very dangerous forces above major population centers. That feeds back to why there’s not much interest in teeny little plants–because at that point they’re not worth having somebody drive out there to adjust flows and maintain them. And for larger plants, the extra complexity may not be worth the sales of the power produced. And for the largest plants, where it’s definitely “worth” it from an economic perspective, most of them have been developed in the US, and most of the rest have environmental issues.

      • matkoniecz says:

        And note that large number of major dams (according to statistics tracked earlier) are for irrigation. I am guessing that dam for irrigation often requires stable water levels or storing water during one season to dispense it during another. What would conflict with water management for power generation purposes.

        • Garrett says:

          That brings up an interesting question. From a safety perspective, is there a point at which a dam’s head is too low to worry about? You can imagine a small community putting up a 6″ dam on a creek going through town to create a nifty reflecting pond as “not worth worrying about”. And something like the Grand Coolie Dam as “better inspect that thing routinely or we’re all going to die”. Are there any guidelines on what the lower-end category boundaries are?

          • CatCube says:

            A structure has to be logged in the National Inventory of Dams if it meets the following criteria:

            The NID consists of dams meeting at least one of the following criteria;
            1) High hazard potential classification – loss of human life is likely if the dam fails,
            2) Significant hazard potential classification – no probable loss of human life but can cause economic loss, environmental damage, disruption of lifeline facilities, or impact other concerns,
            3) Equal or exceed 25 feet in height and exceed 15 acre-feet in storage,
            4) Equal or exceed 50 acre-feet storage and exceed 6 feet in height.

            The first two are somewhat circular with your question, but the last two are where they start to say “we need to track it if you meet these objective numbers.” The first two, unfortunately, are both necessary and difficult to quantify in objective rules as they’ll depend on the particular site. If the river is small downstream of your theoretical 6″ reflecting pond and the pond extends far upstream (retaining a lot of water), losing the pool could potentially at least cause economic damage as the river exceeds its banks momentarily.

            Now, this database isn’t comprehensive, since it’s the attempt to build this information from the ground up. There was no central repository before, so there’s probably a lot still missing. But that’s at least a start to your question.

            I don’t know if the Association of State Dam Safety Officials website has criteria, but they probably have something buried in their directory tree.

  68. HeelBearCub says:

    A question for those of you who still use your maths. [Yes, I used the English expression. Seemed better somehow.]

    In “A Failure, But Not Of Prediction” I made the claim that in the absence of effective infection control letting in either N people from an infection hotspot or 1/2N people makes no real difference to the progression of the disease.

    Eventually David Friedman distilled down his claim, which I can’t make any sense of:

    Disease numbers are linear in number initially infected, as long as most people are neither infected nor immune. That’s linear as a function of number infected, not as a function of time. And it is just as true if growth over time is exponential.

    Assume growth is exponential, most people are neither infected nor immune. My claim is that:

    Number infected(t) = (Number infected (to))(B^(t-to))

    That’s linear in number earlier infected, exponential in time. It isn’t precisely true because the number who can get infected is falling over time, but it’s close to true as long as most people are neither infected nor immune.

    So the claim is that the bolded equation is “linear in number earlier infected, exponential in time”.

    This seems “not even wrong” to me, as it don’t know what meaning it would have to ignore time here.

    However, I don’t even think the claim as stated is true. I asked my dad (who actually did use his maths past college, being an Econ prof) and his conclusion was:

    What the person is saying is that the function he gives for number infected has two arguments on the right hand side. The first is the past value of number infected. The second is an exponential in time. At a moment in time (t constant), infections today are proportional to infections at t0. But his claim of linearity is false since the proportionality parameter, B (t-t0), is not constant but varies through time. A linear relationship as normally defined would have a constant parameter.

    The function is not linear in the standard sense of the term.

    So, the question I have is:
    a) Is the equation a linear equation?
    b) Does it have any meaning to look at it as a linear equation?

    • dont-want says:

      The volume of a cylinder is V(r,h) = π * r^2 * h.

      That function is linear in height (h), but quadratic in radius (r). It’s implied that the respective other parameter is assumed constant.

      Replace time, and number of initially infected people, respectively. (And quadratic with exponential.)

      When you’re talking about how the number of infected people develops over time, that’s an exponential process.

      When you’re talking about what the number of infected people now would be, had there been a different number of initially infected people, that would be a linear relationship, according to the claim you quoted.

      It says that while your claim that the number of initially infected people makes no difference to the progression of the disease may be true, it does make the difference that with half as many initially sick people, half as many people would be sick now, and that would be the case for any other point in time, and that is what linearity means in this case.

      If you’re a programmer, think of the linear function as a function whose return value is not a number, but an entire process over time.

    • J Mann says:

      I’m not great at math, so let me use a concrete hypothetical and work backward.

      Let’s say we let N infected people in the country on Day 0, and that the number of infected people doubles every 3 days. (We’ll assume for simplicity that there’s no change in R and we don’t start to run out of people or hit immunity effects over the relevant period.)

      After 30 days, the number of people has increased exponentially to 2^10=1024 the number of initial infected.

      If we let in 10 people on day 0, we now have 10,240 infected. On the other hand, if we let in 20 people, we now have 20,480 people.

      Your initial statement was “letting in either N people from an infection hotspot or 1/2N people makes no real difference to the progression of the disease”

      You and David might have different understandings of the word “progression.” Letting 1/2 the infected people in in my simplified hypothetical results in 1/2 the infected on any given day, which under those assumptions is the same as 3 days. (People in the immigration restricted immigration world have as many infected on Day N as the non-immigration restricted people have on Day N-3).

      Therefore, I interpret David as saying that the number of infected people prior to hitting limits is a function with linear characteristics relative to people we let in (i.e., if we let in 1/2 the number of infected people, we end up with 1/2 the number of infected people) and a exponential characteristics relative to the amount of time we let go by.

      • EchoChaos says:

        Yeah, this is basically what I understood his statement to mean as well.

        If after day 14 of doubling you are going to put into place measures to stop the spread, then having a starting number of 100 versus 50 makes a big difference in how many people get it.

        If you’re going to put measures in place at 1000 cases, then it probably doesn’t.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        This point was one I was rather explicitly making, but one I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from.

        N vs. 1/2 N gains you, at most, one doubling of the infections. Absent measures to control infection spread that is all it buys you.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Sure, but measures to control the infection are going to be put in place, and one doubling can be a REALLY big deal. If we had one more doubling in NY, it would be even more horrifying. If we had 2 more doublings, NY alone would have more deaths than any country in the world.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Sure, but measures to control the infection are going to be put in place, and one doubling can be a REALLY big deal.

            Sure, but when local restrictions were put in place are very much tied to how noticeable the infection was. And community spread was well underway before the travel restrictions, so the number of total cases isn’t likely to be greatly impacted by those who came from China to NYC.

            March 17th Cuomo says NYC can’t be locked down. March 20th he announces NYC will be locked down. That’s two weeks past when the China travel ban goes into effect on March 2nd. The timing doesn’t work.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @HeelBearCub

            NYC mostly got infected from Italy, not directly from China, as I understand it. The travel ban from Italy was March 12th.

            That’s 5-8 days, i.e. 1-2 doubling periods.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @EchoChaos:
            Well, that just makes the EU travel ban even less consequential. It’s pretty clear that NYCs case numbers weren’t changed in much of any way at all by the imposition of the ban.

            My point isn’t that we don’t need travel restrictions, but that travel restrictions by themselves are essentially pointless if they aren’t what’s keep the disease from getting to the point of community spread.

            This is all the context of arguing what effect the China (half) ban had, when it was implemented without any measures that would be sufficient to detect and prevent community spread.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @HeelBearCub

            If we’re talking about the China travel ban, that one looks much better because we very nearly got the West Coast under control and even today it’s doing fairly well. We DID try test and trace on the West Coast cases, although the CDC made mistakes with early tests, and for a bit it looked good. We WERE doing everything by the book. Lock down, test and trace any cases and quarantine.

            The East Coast got hammered because we were too slow to realize that we were getting secondary infections from Europe. That was a major mistake, no question, but if we added two doubling periods of travel before NYC locks down, that becomes very very bad. Even if the travel only added one doubling that’s horrible.

        • J Mann says:

          N vs. 1/2 N gains you, at most, one doubling of the infections. Absent measures to control infection spread that is all it buys you.

          Yeah, I agree that’s the point.

          – If you assume that people will put measures in place only when x% of the population is infected, then it doesn’t help at all.

          – If you assume that the measures get put in place based on external factors (when the news from Italy grows too strident to ignore; when we get tests on line (assuming those aren’t delayed by the travel ban, etc.), then not imposing the travel ban in your hypo as much doubles the number of dead, which seems like a lot.

          – (Presumably, if the date of control measures is influenced partially by external factors and partially by the number of infected, then the result is somewhere in between).

          Both your point and David’s are tautologically correct, IMHO – which one is more relevant depends on your assumptions about what triggered control measures.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @J Mann:
            I’m relatively sure that the point you are making on David’s behalf isn’t the argument he is making. I’m going to reply to David below, as I think I finally figured out what he means. Maybe.

            Edit:
            Actually, maybe it is his point. I remain confused about what point he is trying to make.

          • J. Mann has it correct, although I don’t think I had thought the argument through that clearly when I originally made it.

            Suppose we are considering an initial infection pool of either X or 2X (the immigration case is more complicated, for reasons I sketched in another post). If the assumption is that the contagion spreads until we hit herd immunity, then the only difference is how soon the relevant fraction of the population get infected, and with a doubling time of, say, a week, the difference is only a week.

            If the contagion spreads until a fixed date, at which point we stop it, either by a lockdown, a cure, or a vaccine, then the initial pool of 2X results in twice as many people dead as a pool of X, assuming that at that point most people have still not gotten it. Obviously if the date at which we stop it is at a point at which everyone not naturally immune has gotten infected, X and 2X have the same effect.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:

            If the contagion spreads until a fixed date, at which point we stop it, either by a lockdown, a cure, or a vaccine

            Cure and vaccine aren’t coming into play before we reach herd immunity absent doing something else.

            a) This actually specifically rejects the hypothetical, because now you are assuming that something to stop disease spread will occur. The hypothetical, and actual, thing that happened is that at the time of the initial travel ban, nothing else was being done to stop the spread of the virus. That was the entire point of the critique.

            b) Assuming that one wants to argue that the travel ban made a difference because there would be a lockdown at some point in the future, we need to ask what triggers the lockdown that had not yet happened at the point of the travel ban. Given that the argument continued to be made after the travel ban (by those who instituted it) that the travel ban had been efficacious in stopping infection, I’m curious why you think the travel ban can be assumed to have no effect on the lockdown date.

          • J Mann says:

            The nice thing is now we’ve pulled out the assumptions you guys are disagreeing about – you could take it to the next open thread if you thought that would be productive, or if not, you understand each other better.

    • bzium says:

      The two-argument function f(t, N0) = N0 * B^(t – t0) isn’t linear.

      The one-argument function g(N0) = N0 * B^(t1 – t0) which you get after fixing t to any particular value of t1 is linear.

    • J Mann says:

      I went back to the earlier discussion HBC and I am guessing both sides had some unstated assumptions.

      HBC is correct that if you assume that no one does anything to stop the spread of an exponential growth case (or, as EchoChaos points out, if you assume that no one will do anything until the number of deaths =X), then after one doubling, you end up with the exact same curve, shifted forward in time however many days it takes to double.

      On the other hand, if you assume that people are going to take action on a particular day (let’s say when the news from Italy becomes too serious to ignore), then shifting the curve forward in time produces a different curve.

      When HBC and DF were arguing about whether cutting the starting numbers of infected in half “does nothing,” I’m betting they had different assumptions about whether US action was triggered based on the size of US infection or on other events.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        In the context of the conversation, and in the real world, no actions were taken at the time of the travel restriction, or close there to.

        And as we can see in actuality, restrictions in the US were entirely dependent on local infections beginning to spike.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          It still seems to me that if you have two infected travelers coming into the country, one bound for L.A. and one bound for Chicago, and you only stopped half of them, you still spare a major city from an infection, and this is not worth nothing.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Certainly I completely realized there is a very real difference between 0 infections and 1. I even made that point in that thread.

            But you analysis assumes that the travel ban itself, imposed after community spread had started, would somehow prevent the virus from taking root in Chicago. There is no reason to believe that would be true. Travel inside the US dwarfs travel from the outside.

            ETA: Originally the first word in this post was Well. If someone takes the name “Certainly”, I don’t know what I’ll do.

        • Evan Þ says:

          I’m not convinced. Here in Seattle, Microsoft and a number of other major employers sent all employees to WFH a few days after community spread was first confirmed here. And that confirmation didn’t really depend on infections spiking, but on brave testers willing to defy the FDA and actually start testing people.

    • quanta413 says:

      What David Friedman says matches the terminology I’ve seen. I don’t know why your father thinks a coefficient cant be time varying. Maybe the terminology has shifted over time. Linear differential equations with time varying coefficients are now standard in introductory textbooks on differential equations and sometimes calculus books.

      Its also common with certain types of nonlinear models to distinguish linearity in the fitting parameters from linearity in the independent variable. Often linearity in the parameters is enough to guarantee various nice properties for fitting routines.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        Ok, what would that mean in the context of disease propagation?

        • HeelBearCub says:

          @quanta413:
          I’m hoping you will see this, as I do want to understand whether distinguishing “linearity in the fitting parameters from linearity in the independent variable” has some application to studying the geometric spread of contagion.

        • quanta413 says:

          Your real argument is about how much government (and other) responses were tied to time vs. the level of currently measured infections. This has nothing to do with questions about the terminology of linearity.

          Some governments responded at a much earlier level of infections than others. For those governments, avoiding one or two doublings could be very consequential. Although ideally they react so swiftly that they end up having almost no problem at all, when there’s so much uncertainty every improvement you get earlier helps a lot.

          For small communities due to the stochastic nature of outbreaks, it can be a big deal to cut the inflow in half even if the growth is exponential once the disease spreads far. You may have no outbreak at all, or you may gain much more time than one doubling period (of course, on the flip side, you may gain none at all due to the stochastic nature of things).

          For NYC shaving off a doubling or two probably wouldn’t have mattered to the end result. But if Taiwan or South Korea had had one or two more doublings before their response began it may have made things significantly worse.

          I don’t think there’s any way to know how many places were or are on the razor’s edge where shaving off a doubling or two would have led to a significantly improved outcome. In the short term at least. In the long term I think it’s just going to get reintroduced anywhere that has it under control but delaying the spread a few months might still be worth it. Considering how minimal a restriction travel bans are compared to many other restrictions imposed, it’s the sort of thing that probably ought to be used more than it is.

          EDIT: Although obviously, it’s much better if you quarantine everyone incoming who isn’t outright banned from travel. And so on and so forth you could imagine doing this sort of thing by state or province border, by city limit, etc. That ship has already sailed for most of the U.S. since in most places infections added by migration is probably below infections added by local spread, but for islands or other remote areas might still make a difference.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Isn’t everything you are saying predicated on assuming there is an efficacious effort to contain the virus coincident with the inflow?

          • quanta413 says:

            Clearly, you can’t do nothing or close to nothing like New York did. That’s why I said it probably wouldn’t matter in New York. But would probably matter in Taiwan or South Korea. I’m not sure how many places are at the extremes vs. how many are in a grey area where the benefit is unclear. The number of places in between may be small.

            My vague guess is I think you could maybe have done very roughly somewhat better with internal policy than California (which is pretty bad in an absolute sense, but better than a lot of states in a relative sense) but not nearly as good as South Korean or Taiwanese competence and still have seen meaningful benefit. That might net you a few fewer case clusters or delay the spread in some cities which could matter since California responded too late but not as too late as some other places. It’s hard to know.

            But really, you’d have to get down to brass tacks on timings of spread, response, and such to even get a reasonable estimate on how many infections you might prevent.

            It’s definitely not the highest payoff thing to add to your strategy if you’re going down the list of options while still screwing everything else up. It’s better if you crack down hard and fast in pretty much every way possible. For a lot of places, you probably need to cut inflow for that internal crackdown to work, but like you say it’s not gonna do much if you do nothing else.

    • HeelBearCub says:

      But absent measures to control infection spread, all of that matters very little. All that early noise rapidly goes away. That’s why I emphasized the point about measures to control spread.

    • Jon S says:

      The crux of disagreement seems to be DF’s emphasis on “as long as most people are neither infected nor immune”. While that assumption holds, I agree that DF is correct… Whereas the statement you emphasized is to me making a very different assumption – I think your argument boils down to “absent controlling the infection, it will spread until herd immunity is reached” – and I agree with you as well: if a population is going to reach herd immunity, the initial number of cases doesn’t much matter (it’ll slightly impact how long the spread takes; also if the initial number of cases is ~1 the population could get lucky and it could die off on its own).

    • AlesZiegler says:

      I think that DF is substantially correct. Clearest statement of his position in that thread is IMO this:

      Back before there is significant herd immunity, wouldn’t you expect the number of infected people at time t+20 to be roughly proportional to the number at time t?

      Well, in the absence of any infection control, yes.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        Sure.

        But the difference in infections between t+1 and t is equal to all the infections at time t. So it doesn’t matter. What matters is that t is moving onwards.

        If community spread of infections is already advanced, i.e I(t) >> I(n), then the difference between n and 1/2n is extremely inconsequential.

        If I(n) >> I(t), because community infection is not well advanced, then 1/2n bought you 3 days. The 3 days right after you stop travel. If you aren’t using those 3 days to rapidly introduce some means of stopping community spread, it’s just the same as letting in n people. Until you realize that community spread has to be stopped, you haven’t done anything.

        To the extent that the (half) travel ban delays introducing measure effective at stopping community spread, you are actually costing infections.

        • Since HBC has revived this, let me try again to say what I thought the argument was about.

          Another poster attacked the policy of banning travel of foreigners but not of Americans returning, claiming that doing it that way resulted in essentially no benefit. My response was that banning everyone would have about twice the effect of banning half the people.

          The claim I was criticizing would be correct if there were source of contagion other than people coming from abroad, since in that situation banning everybody means that the disease never gets started, banning half the people does not. But at the point when the ban went in, there was already substantial infection in the U.S.. If we imagine a one time scenario in which we start with A contagious people here and B who would like to come, then banning everyone leaves us with A, banning half the people with A+B/2, banning nobody with A+B. So banning half (the foreigners but not the returning Americans) reduces the number infected by half as many as banning all, so if banning all has a large effect, banning half has a substantial effect.

          I went on to argue that, until a significant fraction of the population is either infected or immune, the number infected at any time is proportional to the number who were infected at an earlier time. So, at any time after the initial scenario and until a significant fraction of the population are infected or immune, the number infected at that time will be reduced by twice as much if the initial ban was total than if it was on only returning foreigners.

          The number of infected people is a function of two variables, number initially infected and time, linear in the former and exponential in the latter.

          Obviously that abstracts away from the fact that immigration is not a one-time act but a flow over time, but I don’t think that affects the logic of the argument.

          In the special case where A, the number of initially contagious people, is zero, my result holds but the comment I was criticizing is nonetheless true, since the three alternatives are X, X/2, and 0. The complete ban reduces the number infected by twice as much as the half ban — but that reduces it to zero.

          I hope that makes my side of the argument clear.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            Yes, the number infected at any given time is proportional to those infected at a previous time. As you say, this remains true until we reach the maximum possible infections (everyone infected or herd immunity, whichever comes first).

            Another way of saying this is that, assuming R0 is fixed until herd immunity, each person infects a linear number (R0) of other persons. That’s the linear relationship we are playing with.

            All of the above is true.

            However, assuming no effort to stop the spread of infection, this has no impact at all on the total number of expected infections. You have made no difference in the number of expected final infections.

          • As you say, this remains true until we reach the maximum possible infections (everyone infected or herd immunity, whichever comes first).

            It’s a little more complicated than that. The effect of X vs 2X converges as you approach that end point. If you are most of the way there, 2X is infecting people less than twice as fast as X because, with 2X, there are fewer people left to be infected.

            That’s why I was saying that it was approximately linear as long as most people had not yet been infected.

            Other than that, what you wrote was correct.

    • Chris Phoenix says:

      If social distancing happens (and is effective) when a certain number of people get sick (AKA “I live on the West coast”), then it does not matter how many initial cases there were.

      If social distancing happens (and is effective) on a certain fixed date (AKA “I’m waiting for leadership from the Feds”), then it matters very much how many initial cases there were.

      Reality is somewhere in between, unless you live in CA, OR, WA, or NY.

      Note that even a little bit of extra testing (which the US had no capacity to do when it mattered) would have moved a lot of people into “Initial infection doesn’t matter” territory. The exceptions would be the “Shutdown violates my rights!” crowd.

      Residents of nursing homes and prisons likely are in the “It doesn’t matter, we’re going to get it no matter what” category, except in the case of very early lockdown that manages to keep almost the entire population uninfected.

  69. ana53294 says:

    So they’ve cancelled the Oktoberfest. Which happens in September.

    It’s not like I particularly care about it, but this shows how long they’re expecting this whole thing to last in Germany. And things aren’t even that bad in Germany.

    When will international travel and mass gatherings be allowed? I do hope they allow travel by Christmas (with full planes, none of that social distancing; it’s impossible to accomodate typical Christmas volumes with social distancing).

    • We’ve been wondering if Pennsic, the two week SCA medieval camping event in August, is going to be canceled. We go to that every year.

      The one good thing about it, if it is, aside from saving all the effort involved in preparing and going, is that I may finally find out what my greengage plums taste like. It’s one of the first fruit trees I planted here, twenty some years ago, but it comes ripe during our Pennsic trip — which, including traveling and visiting friends and relations going and coming, takes about a month.

      • Garrett says:

        FYI – I’m located nearby. If you’re interested in meeting up briefly while out here (way in/out/whatever) I’d be delighted.

      • Deiseach says:

        Will you be jam making with the greengages?

        • That probably depends on how many there are. My wife and daughter just did a bunch of marmalade from lemons and sour oranges. The early peach is one of our most productive trees and should come ripe in another week or two, at which point I expect a good deal of it will get either frozen or turned into jam or peach leather. By the time the greengage comes ripe Betty and Becca may have run out of jam making energy.

          Drying fruit is my department, and I may try to see how it works for greengages.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            I expect a good deal of it will get either frozen or turned into jam or peach leather.

            Peach leather does not sound appetizing.

          • And yet it is.

            Liquify peaches in a food processor. Spread the result out in a dehydrator. Dry it. Adding a little honey, cinnamon, or coriander to the liquid is optional.

          • Rebecca Friedman says:

            It’s actually great, much better than drying the peaches normally – no fuzz, no tough bits, just a nice smooth texture.

  70. Gerry Quinn says:

    I think ‘thrive vs. survive’ works reasonably well. Because coronavirus isn’t the Black Death. We could ignore it, and we (most of us) would survive. All this coccooning could be considered an attempt to avoid reality.

    Strategically, it’s not wrong to take some time, work out what tech we need to ameliorate the effects. But we can’t go on like this forever.

  71. salvorhardin says:

    PSA: there’s now a letter from a bipartisan (though looks mostly D) group of Congresspeople urging the FDA to, inter alia, allow human challenge trials for vaccine effectiveness.

    https://twitter.com/RepBillFoster/status/1252601806787686400

    For those of us in the US who favor human challenge trials, now might be a good time to contact our representatives to urge them to sign on. Apparently the strategy here is that if enough of Congress signs on, the FDA will worry less about suffering backlash because they can say “we’re just doing what Congress wants us to do.”

    • CatCube says:

      This makes me nuts. These are Congressmen! Draft up a bill that overrides the FDA and forces through a vaccine and introduce it. Even if it has no chance of going anywhere it’s still a better symbolic action than petitioning federal agencies like they’re the fucking Rotary Club. If they don’t know the right action to take sufficient to write a bill that makes that happen, then they should shut up.

      This has been a bugbear of mine for a while, where we in the federal bureaucracy are tasked with trying to satisfy a bunch of mutually-exclusive demands of their constituents, while Congressional delegations hem and haw about how hard it is when the tangle of laws preventing action is pointed out. This is just spinelessness, fobbing off decisions onto the civil service so they don’t have to take a stand or make a decision that might make somebody mad, while trying to act like they’re helping.

      • The Nybbler says:

        Congress is not really in session.

        • CatCube says:

          That is a fair point.

          • salvorhardin says:

            Wait a minute, is it really? How did they pass CARES, and how are they going to pass the latest small business bailout extension, without Congress being enough in session that they could also pass this?

            (and thanks for the nudge to follow up my emails to reps with “why aren’t you actually passing legislation about this then”)

          • Statismagician says:

            Also, Congress controls their own schedule, so they’re only out of session because they chose to be (or at least didn’t choose not to be). And because apparently nobody thought they might want the capacity to do remote voting at any point in the last fifty years, which is frankly inexcusable.

      • Garrett says:

        You’re saying this like it isn’t intentional.

        This allows Congress to reap all of the rewards of “doing something” while not having to face the downsides of actually doing something.

        • CatCube says:

          I know it’s intentional: that’s why it makes me nuts. They pass a bunch of laws that require fiddly rules to implement, then go “Oh, how could that mean federal agency have a bunch of fiddly rules that you can’t understand? Let me call them and ask them to pretty please not have fiddly rules! [makes call] Sorry, they said no. Let us commiserate together about what meenies they are!”

          This is part of the cession of Congressional power to the executive, and should be reversed.

          Though to be fair, a lot of it is just finding somebody else to blame for doing the right thing. To use an example from above in the discussion of dams: one of the things that makes locals mad about dams is that we don’t store enough water, or let it out early and can’t fill the reservoir for the summer recreation season, or that required releases for maintaining minimum river flows cause us to draft the reservoir.

          One big reason for this is we have to meet a series of rules for operating the reservoir (the rule curve) for how much flood control space we are required to have on any particular day. This rule curve was passed as part of the enabling legislation for the dam, and can only be changed by Congress–and they could change it without our input, if they wanted to make the particular interlocutor happy! However, changing the way you operate a dam without putting in a bunch of effort to study the changes is…not a good idea. So instead of telling the person complaining that what they want is stupid, or can’t be done without fifteen years of study, it gets deflected to the permanent civil service as “sorry, part of the rules.”

          I’d really rather have a muscular Congress that’s willing to tell people “no” but is visibly in charge of the federal government than the current flabby, spineless version that dithers and farms out telling bad news to people. However, the reason they do this is because we (the American public) vote against legislators that tell them “no”. So this is a matter of “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I’d really rather have a muscular Congress that’s willing to tell people “no” but is visibly in charge of the federal government

            I think what you are really asking for here is a different populace, and I’d surmise that different populace is one that understands that expertise is difficult.

          • CatCube says:

            @HeelBearCub

            I think what you are really asking for here is a different populace…

            That…would be why I said “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @CatCube:
            Fair. Considering me as supporting rather than contending your point.

            There is another point here, but I’ll leave it till some other time.

        • Deiseach says:

          They pass a bunch of laws that require fiddly rules to implement, then go “Oh, how could that mean federal agency have a bunch of fiddly rules that you can’t understand? Let me call them and ask them to pretty please not have fiddly rules! [makes call] Sorry, they said no. Let us commiserate together about what meenies they are!”

          I’m with CatCube on this. Ordinary people have no idea how the sausage, once it is made, gets portioned up in the butcher’s window, so to speak.

          Then they go on rants about how the local public/civil servants are all big meanies who are deliberately depriving them of their rights about [thing], oftentimes complaining to the very parliamentary representatives who are the ones who caused [thing] to be drafted in the first place, and said politicians then nod and smile and promise to intervene, all the while knowing that the public servants can’t do a damn thing about it since [conditions governing thing] are part of legislation, they can’t unilaterally change laws, and the people who do have the power are the current government.

          But the politicians don’t want to upset their constituents and potential voters, so they let the poor frontline staff carry the can – “Very sorry, Mrs Jones, I spoke to the department about it but Acting Grade III Clerk Smith sent me this refusal letter”.

          As an example – which thankfully has since been tackled – that I had experience of: school transport. Mileage limits and boundaries for areas for particular schools had been drawn up and never looked at again, and were at least thirty years out of date. They badly needed to be investigated, tidied up, and redrawn, but that was (a) a huge job (b) would tread on somebody’s toes no matter what you did re: redrawing boundaries so people living in this townland fell into the catchment area and (c) would need the Minister(s) of the relevant government department(s) to officially move this, then get the legislation drawn up and passed. Nobody with the actual power to do it wanted to do that, so it was allowed to go on unchanged from year to year.

          Every year, without fail, there were angry letters and phone calls from parents about “How come my little Johnny didn’t get a seat on the school bus?” “How come my neighbour who lives only a hundred yards down the road got her kids on the school bus?” “How come I have to send little Johnny to School A if I want free transport, but I want to send him to School B instead and I know that there is a seat available on the bus running that route?”

          And every year, those angry parents threatened to get their local public representatives involved, and every year those public representatives wrote ‘letters of representation’ to us, despite having the facts explained to them every year about why we could do bugger-all about getting Mrs Murphy’s little Johnny on the bus for School B. The staff members dealing with school transport applications used to go out of their way to see if they could squeeze an exception out – they’d drive the route in their own cars outside of work hours (and not be recompensed expenses for it) and measure the mileage to see if they could work it that “School B is the minimum distance away from where Mrs Murphy lives, so little Johnny is living within the catchment area and is eligible” if it was at all possible. Often it wasn’t.

          Guess who got to carry the can for that? Not the elected politicians. As I said, thank God it’s since been sorted out, but I’ve been the minor minion on the receiving end of angry blasts from the public and you can’t even go “Listen bud, this is how it works and this is why you are not going to get anywhere” to them, you have to smile and be emollient.

          • sharper13 says:

            “I’m sorry Mrs. Parent. I’d love to be able to send your son on the bus to school B, but politicians H-L continue to refuse to change the law to allow that and I prefer not to be arrested. Please speak to them about it and once they make it legal, we’ll be happy to accommodate you.”

            Of course, bureaucrats pointing complaints back at policy-makers is likely only doable for bureaucrats with an existing exit plan. 🙂

          • matkoniecz says:

            Or for bureaucrats deeply isolated from policy-makers.

  72. kai.teorn says:

    > 5. Some people have brought up that my thrive vs. survive theory of the political spectrum does an unusually bad job predicting current events, especially the thing where Democrats mostly want to maintain lockdown and Republicans mostly want to take their chances.

    Not at all. “Survive” does not mean survival of everyone. It means making sacrifices, if necessary, of the least valuable members of the tribe so that the tribe as a whole can live on. “Thrive”, on the other hand, means spreading the benefits of a safe environment equally so as to maximize the returns. To me, the pandemic looks like a perfect showcase of the two isms. Leftism is the safe-environment psychology where random death is rare so each one matters; it also favors equality, so tries to minimize risks for everyone. Rightistm, on the other hand, is the psychology of the unsafe world where random death and inequality are unavoidable; it does not view the disease as bad enough to threaten the survival of the tribe/country/mankind, so sees the demands of the left as oppressive.

  73. j1000000 says:

    What happened to commenter Nabil ad Dajjal? Just suddenly stopped posting a while back, from what I can tell. Thought he occupied a specific niche in the SSC commentariat.

    • Bobobob says:

      Also, is Plumber wedged in a pipe somewhere? I guess a problem with SSC is that very few commenters know each other’s real names/contact info.

      • Matt M says:

        Plumber told us he had a problem with his phone, and wouldn’t be commenting until it gets fixed. I’m guessing in this environment, fixing a phone is harder than it used to be.

        In a sense, you might say that the state of California has declared SSC commenting to be a non-essential activity 🙂

  74. Copasetic says:

    Two cool space facts. 🙂

    The first person to see Neptune was probably Galileo. In Jan 1613, while using his telescope to observe Jupiter and its satellites, Galileo noted a “star” less than 1 arcmin from Neptune’s (then) location. He even subsequently noted in his observation log this star seemed to have moved in relation to the other stars. He would have been hard pressed to identify Neptune as a planet, however, since its motion against the background stars is so slow (it changes position in the sky by 2 degrees/year.)

    Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, has a salmon pink south pole. Triton is the coldest place we know of in the solar system, with a surface temperature just 38 degrees above absolute zero. This temperature is low enough to freeze nitrogen – and nitrogen frost is salmon pink!

    Triton has a retrograde orbit (it orbits in the opposite direction to Neptune’s rotation.) Moons that form alongside a planet tend to orbit prograde (in the direction of their planet’s rotation) since both the moon and the planet form out of the same swirling debris cloud. It is therefore likely that Triton was once a free-roaming planetoid caught by Neptune’s gravity.

    Tidal forces cause moons that orbiting prograde (slower than their planet rotates) to slowly spiral out into space. The moon, for example, is spirals 4 cm away from Earth every year. Conversely, tidal forces gradually rob Triton’s retrograde orbit of energy, causing it to spiral into Neptune. In about 100 million years, Triton will fall through Neptune’s Roche limit and be torn to pieces, giving Neptune a spectacular ring system.

    Source: Universe (10th Edition). Roger A Freedman, Robert M Geller, and William J Kaufmann III.

  75. albatross11 says:

    This VOX article by Kelsey Piper describes the results of some contact tracing, showing:

    a. Asymptomatic spread

    b. Likely spread from contaminated surfaces (from an asymptomatic person)

    c. Transmission associated with singing

    Here’s a quote from the original report from Singapore:

    A woman aged 55 years (patient A1) and a man aged 56 years (patient A2) were tourists from Wuhan, China, who arrived in Singapore on January 19. They visited a local church the same day and had symptom onset on January 22 (patient A1) and January 24 (patient A2). Three other persons, a man aged 53 years (patient A3), a woman aged 39 years (patient A4), and a woman aged 52 years (patient A5) attended the same church that day and subsequently developed symptoms on January 23, January 30, and February 3, respectively. Patient A5 occupied the same seat in the church that patients A1 and A2 had occupied earlier that day (captured by closed-circuit camera) (5). Investigations of other attendees did not reveal any other symptomatic persons who attended the church that day.

    Patient A5 seems very likely to have caught the virus from surface contamination–at a guess, rubbing his eyes or nose after touching the pew or hymnal or something.

    There’s also this one:

    Cluster F. A woman aged 58 years (patient F1) attended a singing class on February 27, where she was exposed to a patient with confirmed COVID-19. She attended a church service on March 1, where she likely infected a woman aged 26 years (patient F2) and a man aged 29 years (patient F3), both of whom sat one row behind her. Patient F1 developed symptoms on March 3, and patients F2 and F3 developed symptoms on March 3 and March 5, respectively.

    This seems to add to the circumstantial evidence that singing is probably a pretty good way of spreading the virus. My guess is that when you sing, you’re producing more respiratory droplets and flinging them several feet. Church services and singing classes and choir practices and such all seem pretty likely places to transmit the virus. (When church services start happening again, I can imagine holding them outdoors with everyone seated pretty far apart, and not having any singing.). My intuition is that yelling, cheering, etc., is probably also pretty good at launching those droplets far away. Both might also actually be able to make enough very small airborne droplets to infect someone at a great distance–that would be interesting to check up on, but if it’s true, it would support keeping concerts and sporting events shut down.

    • Edward Scizorhands says:

      If sitting in a seat that an infected person sat in earlier is a good way to catch it, a subway becomes a bloodbath.

      • Matt M says:

        Which could very well explain New York, as compared to the rest of the country.

        • BBA says:

          The data doesn’t back it up. Now I admit that Levy is a pro-transit partisan (as am I), but the infection map in the linked post clearly shows that the densest, most transit-centric parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn have been spared the worst of the outbreak, while positively suburban Staten Island which isn’t even on a subway line is among the hardest hit.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Commuting is Manhattan-centric; those commuting from the outer boroughs spend longer on the subways and buses (and the ferry) than those in Manhattan, generally.

          • meh says:

            Aren’t the denset most transit-centric parts usually commercial, and not where people live? I assume outbreak zip codes use where you live, not where you commute to. If you do live in a transit hub zip code, you are probably walking to work, not taking the train.

          • BBA says:

            @Nybbler
            I considered that, but it doesn’t explain why Flushing (in the northeast corner of Queens) has been so lightly hit. Their subway rides to Manhattan go through Jackson Heights (the disaster area in north central Queens), shouldn’t they be getting an equal or greater viral load?

            The other obvious correlates are wealth and race, but those also don’t explain Staten Island.

            @meh
            The more residential areas of Manhattan (Tribeca, the Village, etc.) are also light yellow. Some of them are close enough to walk to the main office districts in Midtown and FiDi but there are still a lot of intra-Manhattan subway commuters.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            I wasn’t impressed with the original paper mapping subway usage to outbreaks. It was very vague and I felt if there were a strong case they would have made it.

            I’m very inclined to believe subway usage is a super-spreader, because it seems so obvious. But that paper made me slightly less likely to believe it.

          • albatross11 says:

            That’s a mystery, though, because of the three plausible ways to transmit the virus to strangers, a crowded subway car, bus, or commuter train should be very close to optimal. And indeed, NYC has been much harder hit than Washington State or California, even though there’s evidence of community spread in both states for probably at least as long as the virus has been in the NYC area.

            As I understand it, the virus infects tissue in your upper respiratory tract–nose, throat, sinuses–and probably also your lungs and sometimes your intestines. Short of giving someone a big wet kiss on the mouth, the way you transmit the virus (and I think this is true for all or almost all respiratory viruses) is by little droplets of water and mucus coming out of your nose and mouth. This blog post discusses different droplet sizes and how they carry viruses.

            You produce those droplets just by breathing, but you probably produce more (and I think you must propel them further) by coughing or sneezing, and probably also by singing or shouting. Maybe also when you’re exercising?

            Bigger droplets fall to the ground fairly close to where you are. Think of this like tossing a ball–when you’re just breathing normally, they’re like tossing the ball lightly. When you’re singing, shouting, coughing, or sneezing, it’s like throwing a ball as hard as you can–the ball’s going to travel a lot further before hitting the ground.

            The big droplets that land on your eyes or go up your nose or into your mouth can infect you directly. This seems to have happened in various cases like that Wuhan restaurant, where people at the tables on either side of the first infected people got sick, but nobody else did. Also in the Singapore church, where one infected person infected a few other people sitting near her, but nobody else.

            Those droplets can also land on surfaces and then end up infecting you if they’re somehow transferred to your eye/nose/mouth. That one case in the Singapore church where the person who sat in the same spot as the infected person later on caught the virus is an example.

            The smallest droplets (less than about 10 microns, so about 1/10 of the width of a human hair) very quickly evaporate into tiny motes of dried goo and virus called droplet nuclei, and can hang in the air for minutes to hours in a nice healthy cloud of contagion. There are cases of transmission of the virus that seem like they must have been from these tiny particles, because they seem to have affected people far away from the first infected person. (The Washington choir practice thing might have been tiny droplet nuclei, or might have been big droplets that were being propelled really far thanks to choir members singing out–I don’t think anyone knows. The big Boston biotech conference that had so many people get infected also seems very likely to have been from airborne transmission, as I understand it.)

            All that’s just to say that the virus seems to transmit by big droplets landing on you, big droplets landing on surfaces and getting on your hands and eventually into your eyes/nose/mouth, and tiny dried-out droplet nuclei floating around until you inhale a nice deep breath of them.

            Given all that, it’s hard to imagine that crowded public transit *isn’t* a great place to spread the virus. My guess is that the pattern he’s seeing almost has to be from some kind of confounders. But there’s also the fact that it seems to have taken quite a long time for the virus to become a crisis in Japan, and they’re famous for their insanely crowded and heavily-used transit systems.

            So it would be interesting to untangle what’s going on there.

          • The Nybbler says:

            I considered that, but it doesn’t explain why Flushing (in the northeast corner of Queens) has been so lightly hit.

            That’s not Flushing. It’s Bayside and Oakland Gardens. Bayside has an LIRR stop but no subway; Oakland Gardens has neither. Flushing is light and dark purple on the “cases” graph and nearly all dark purple on the “positivity” graph.

            Staten Island was (apparently) more lightly hit earlier on, then got worse. Not sure what’s going on there, perhaps there is a concentration of health care or other essential workers there.

  76. Null42 says:

    Re survive-thrive: I think it has explanatory value if you see it as one of many factors, which in this case is swamped by the standard red-blue tribalism.

    Douthat said as much:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/covid-conservatism.html

    There were a small number of conservative bloggers (some probably known to people here) who called this early, particularly ones not tied to the institutional GOP, but after it turned into a red-blue thing people took their appointed side. Basically, if it’s serious, Trump screwed up, so if you like Trump, it’s not serious, and vice versa. (And this is not meant to apply to anyone here–y’all can think for yourselves!)

    • albatross11 says:

      It’s important to remember how much tribalism is a mind-killer. At least as much as fear. People will routinely express very strong opinions about things they know next to nothing about, ignore evidence that’s right in front of their eyes but is inconvenient for their side, and tune out contradictory ideas even from people they otherwise like and trust under the influence of tribalism.

    • LadyJane says:

      I think it’s a bit of a mischaracterization to boil down that article to “this is because of political tribalism.” Douthat’s argument wasn’t “Trump made a totally random mistake, and everything else has been a result of his supporters trying to downplay that mistake.” There’s a reason that Trump erred in this particular direction, and a reason his base followed his lead beyond partisanship and blind loyalty; there was not an equally likely chance that Trump would’ve overreacted to the pandemic and thus caused Republicans to overwhelmingly support strict quarantine measures.

      The core of Douthat’s argument was closer to something like “yes, this was driven by certain moral values and psychological tendencies, but modern American right-wing populists have a radically different set of values and tendencies than traditional conservatives.” To quote him directly:

      “But the right’s varying responses to the pandemic also illustrate two further points. The first point is that what we call “American conservatism” is probably more ideologically and psychologically heterogeneous than the conservative mind-set that social scientists aspire to measure and pin down. In particular, it includes an incredibly powerful streak of what you might call folk libertarianism […] This mentality, with its reflexive Ayn Randism and its Panglossian hyper-individualism, is definitely essential to understanding part of the American right. But it’s very much an American thing unto itself, and I’m doubtful that it corresponds to any universal set of psychological tendencies that we could reasonably call conservative.

      The second point is that on the fringes of the right, among QAnon devotees and believers in the satanic depravity of liberalism, the only psychology that matters is paranoia, not conservatism. And their minimizing response to the coronavirus illustrates the unwillingness of the conspiratorial mind to ever take yes for an answer — meaning that even true events that seem to vindicate a somewhat paranoid worldview will be dismissed as not true enough, not the deepest truth, not the Grandest of All Grand Conspiracies that will someday (someday) be unraveled.”

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        I can imagine a world where the conservatives are urging shutdowns and the liberals are fighting against it, but it requires me to ignore what other countries are doing.

        Trump likes to hear good news. He doesn’t like to hear bad news. People who report problems get filtered out. (Obama had a similar problem but to a much smaller degree. With healthcare-dot-gov, the inner circle refused to hear problems and called the people trying to raise alarm “bedwetters,” but that only lasted until it blew up in their face.) Trump is still looking for easy fixes that show it wasn’t that big a deal, anyway, what are you getting so upset about?