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Something such as "we should prioritize efforts in cities besides Seattle/New York as the virus has clearly spread beyond reasonable containment, yet can still

Something such as "we should prioritize efforts in cities besides Seattle/New York as the virus has clearly spread beyond reasonable containment, yet can still be contained in Atlanta/Miami" could be reported as "U.S Government elects to leave the people of Seattle on their own." Replace the cities or issue with anything you want. The point is, something has to be prioritized, and the ones who aren't prioritized could be seen as victimized.

JamesBarney 7y ago
Classifying doesn't keep you from having to prioritize things. Or people finding out that you prioritized certain regions over others.
- edanm 7y ago
  Sometimes in life you actually do have to prioritize. The alternative is maybe doing a half measure and being far less effective. So the rational course is often to prioritize. However, no politician/official necessarily wants to be on record as making this kind of priority decision. So if you insist on radical transparency in these situations, you're insisting on people being less effective.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    Not classifying meetings that have never been classified before is not insisting on radical transparency. But even if you assume that politicians have misaligned incentives because they care more about optics than saving lives, why reduce transparency? You're making the assumption there are more good decisions with bad optics than bad decisions with bad optics. Which seems like an unlikely assumption to be true.
    - edanm 7y ago
      > Not classifying meetings that have never been classified before is not insisting on radical transparency. Agreed. I was referring to the principle of the thing, not this specific instance. > You're making the assumption there are more good decisions with bad optics than bad decisions with bad optics. Which seems like an unlikely assumption to be true. I think it might be true in certain situations, e.g. emergency situations like we're in now.

JamesBarney 7y ago

Classifying doesn't keep you from having to prioritize things. Or people finding out that you prioritized certain regions over others.

edanm 7y ago
Sometimes in life you actually do have to prioritize. The alternative is maybe doing a half measure and being far less effective. So the rational course is often to prioritize. However, no politician/official necessarily wants to be on record as making this kind of priority decision. So if you insist on radical transparency in these situations, you're insisting on people being less effective.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Not classifying meetings that have never been classified before is not insisting on radical transparency. But even if you assume that politicians have misaligned incentives because they care more about optics than saving lives, why reduce transparency? You're making the assumption there are more good decisions with bad optics than bad decisions with bad optics. Which seems like an unlikely assumption to be true.
  - edanm 7y ago
    > Not classifying meetings that have never been classified before is not insisting on radical transparency. Agreed. I was referring to the principle of the thing, not this specific instance. > You're making the assumption there are more good decisions with bad optics than bad decisions with bad optics. Which seems like an unlikely assumption to be true. I think it might be true in certain situations, e.g. emergency situations like we're in now.