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>What do you think makes this an exception? Do you realize it's completely irrational to debate unknown unknowns? Any certainty comes from bias. So you think t

>What do you think makes this an exception? Do you realize it's completely irrational to debate unknown unknowns? Any certainty comes from bias. So you think the doctor is the tip of the iceberg but you absolutely can't know how big the iceberg is. I think the doctor isn't and honestly I can't know that either. What I do have going for me is the biased perspective that on balance the world is being run adequately and if all of these subversive things were true that couldn't be the case. But I readily admit that that's circular and to the extent that it's not it's completely apriori.

jacquesm 7y ago
My point is, in case that isn't clear: the people on the front lines of this outbreak are telling a different story than the one that you seem to favor and that up to some point (right up until it became untenable) was still held by the Chinese authorities. So I'm a little skeptical about numbers and stories coming in from Chinese official channels taking them as a baseline with the mental note that things might be much worse. The data points that we have from outside of China: Iran, the cruise ships, South Korea and several other regions where the virus has established a relatively strong foothold should give anybody pause at this point, any comparisons with the flu are pointless and noise. Whether or not we are calling a pandemic is semantics, in all but name it is here today. The doctor was the tip of the iceberg, he is no longer. But there are other people in charge of the messaging for other countries and it seems as though the dreaded pandemic word is now also used by the CDC and similar organizations, internally and with qualifiers ('preparing for a pandemic') it is more a matter of time when they will feel comfortable in using it publicly.
wakindra 7y ago
My two cents in this great discussion. The climate change emergency and the biodiversity collapse with no corrective measure taken whilee the stakes are so high for our survival seem to be proof that the world is NOT run adequately.

jacquesm 7y ago

My point is, in case that isn't clear: the people on the front lines of this outbreak are telling a different story than the one that you seem to favor and that up to some point (right up until it became untenable) was still held by the Chinese authorities. So I'm a little skeptical about numbers and stories coming in from Chinese official channels taking them as a baseline with the mental note that things might be much worse. The data points that we have from outside of China: Iran, the cruise ships, South Korea and several other regions where the virus has established a relatively strong foothold should give anybody pause at this point, any comparisons with the flu are pointless and noise. Whether or not we are calling a pandemic is semantics, in all but name it is here today. The doctor was the tip of the iceberg, he is no longer. But there are other people in charge of the messaging for other countries and it seems as though the dreaded pandemic word is now also used by the CDC and similar organizations, internally and with qualifiers ('preparing for a pandemic') it is more a matter of time when they will feel comfortable in using it publicly.

wakindra 7y ago

My two cents in this great discussion. The climate change emergency and the biodiversity collapse with no corrective measure taken whilee the stakes are so high for our survival seem to be proof that the world is NOT run adequately.