13 ms·

> I’m stunned by the absolute absence of global dialogue for what is a global event. In Europe right now, you would never believe that there was a European Unio

> I’m stunned by the absolute absence of global dialogue for what is a global event. In Europe right now, you would never believe that there was a European Union. This is my key takeaway. A lot of the damage is in the end self-inflicted. People seem not to be able to act cohesively at an inter-national scale, not even within a country group that is supposedly designed for that. Whether it's pandemics, global warming or nuclear weapons this lack of cooperation shows up again and again.

corpMaverick 7y ago
Lack of leadership. That happens when the most powerful man in the world is an idiot that doesn't believe in multilateral cooperation.
- leto_ii 7y ago
  Trump is part of the problem, for sure, but it seems to me that a world that is strongly divided into nation-states is just not able to effectively tackle pan-national threats. Even at an individual level we're so used to thinking in terms of 'our country vs. the rest' that our ability to empathize with people from 'far-away' is impeded.
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    I’ve literally heard this virus be called “foreign”, like it identifies with a nationality etc.
    - sorokod 7y ago
      Quote: "This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history"
  - buboard 7y ago
    OTOH it s increased international travel that causes the acuteness of these pandemics
  - natmaka 7y ago
    Any "pan-national" effort implies massive transportation of goods/specialists. All this will let the virus thrive. Moreover such pan-national tackling will let the apparently most adequate response be adopted, therefore if it fails too badly we may be all wiped out because it will fail everywhere. Such a major pandemic is only possible thanks to our current population densities, massive transportation of persons/goods. Our central administrations were, as usual, patently totally unable to cope and even in some cases their very actions amplify the threat (cops in Wuhan silencing the local doc who early understood the threat, grotesque CDC actions in the US...), and are always pushing towards more densely populated huge territories for them to 'administer'. ... and further transportation of persons/goods and centralization of control should be in order?
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      In developed countries, I see no reason why there would be any need for "massive transportation" of either goods or specialists at a scale that would make a significant difference to viral spread. Even if it were necessary, mitigation measures are neither difficult nor expensive. Perhaps we could just leave it to the markets. They've done such a good job of providing robust and affordable healthcare in the US, markets can surely handle an international viral outbreak simply by maximising efficiency and ROI.
      - Mirioron 7y ago
        >In developed countries, I see no reason why there would be any need for "massive transportation" of either goods or specialists at a scale that would make a significant difference to viral spread. Because of economies of scale and specialization? It's often cheaper for one place to produce a lot of a narrow list of goods and trade that for the goods they're lacking rather than every place making everything they use. This means that a lot of goods need to be moved around and a lot of people too. >Even if it were necessary, mitigation measures are neither difficult nor expensive. Like what? Shut down international travel? Test every person coming into a country for a new disease? Both of these are very expensive, especially the former.
      - natmaka 7y ago
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    But it makes sense to think that way. The ones who know the local situation best are the locals, not bureaucrats thousands of miles away. And when it comes to empathy, then those bureaucrats tend to have little of it towards the people affected by essentially any problem that doesn't affect where they are.
    - leto_ii 7y ago
      I don't get why coordination is equated by many people with centralization. You can agree on a set of measures that should be taken by everybody under certain circumstances and then let individual countries apply those measures.
- robk 7y ago
  Please check your trump derangement syndrome. He's not the cause of all the world problems.
  - atoav 7y ago
    Although this wasn't exclusively about the US: Most issues the US now has, indeed existed before Trump became president — so much is true. Yet Trump still is the worst president you could have at that point in time. Nearly a month into the whole thing he decides it would be a good thing to call the virus a hoax, disregard expert advice and ultimately acts (as he usually does) purely on symbolical plane by blaming it on foreigners and closing the border. Closing the dissease control unit Obama built in the white house is only the cherry on top. Nothing to adress the issue of not beeing able to test people, there is no real oversight what is going on in the US. And quite frankly: if your leader's decisions are worse than throwing a dice, why even bother having him? Because it is more entertaining? In times of a pandemic you want to have something in leadership who does the unpopular thing, that ultimately stops the spread and saves the lives. Not someone who only thinks about themselves and changes their stance on the topic with every turn of the wind. But feel free to argue otherwise, if you know how the poststructuralist ways of trumpian confusion somehow help in times of a pandemic.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      He didn't call the virus a hoax ( https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re... ) and he's happy to have people on his task force who will publicly contradict him so he isn't flooding the response with compliant yes men ( https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-vaccine-push-back/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/politics/donald-trump-cor... ). The US is probably doing terribly because of the CDCs absolute fumble of the test kit debacle; but assessing Trump's response as good or bad will take a lot of time. His border closures, believe what you will, were totally in character and probably good ideas for this specific crisis.
      - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
- 101404 7y ago
  Because the US is the only country in the world and Trump the only political leader in the world?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- atoav 7y ago
  Living in Germany I don't really feel there is a lack of leadership. So far the politicians listened to expert advice which is precisely what I expect from them. And to oir luck the testing infrastructure in Germany is much better than in nearly every other nation (which also means the numbers are closer to reality than e.g. in Italy or the US). On top of that we have paid leave, so people who are showing symptoms can stay at home without worrying about money. This is a very different story in the US of course — but is it really only a leadership problem? Isn't it more of a systemic issue in the sense that now the weaknesses of e.g. certain centralized testing structures, not having universal healthcare etc come to light. Trump might be the worst president the US could have at that point in time, because he acts actively destructive on top of a system that hasn't that much ressilience anyways.
  - mbeex 7y ago
    > So far the politicians listened to expert advice which is precisely what I expect from them. This is simply not true. The response of the Merkel administration is one of the slowest and inconsequential in whole Europe. Very probably accompanied by deliberately playing down death cases and infection numbers in general if anectotical information and comparison with the numbers of surrounding countries has any value.
    - kriro 7y ago
      I think they have handled it pretty well. I'm pretty sure they spent some time talking to experts. I've worked in a research project on crisis management before and have a very high opinion of the Robert Koch Institute which was one of the partners (and am generally quite critical of government organizations). Given the political infrastructure (states can make the decisions in many areas), I think the reaction was pretty good so far. One of the major concerns is always avoiding panics. I'm pretty sure they are balancing all official statements against that. Tbh. the most important thing for me is that you listen to experts and don't overreact.
      - wirrbel 7y ago
        In retrospect I think three things could have been handled better. Screening for fever at airports and clearer rules for self quarantining of people after traveling. Third point is control of medical and hygienic supply chains. Otherwise okish response I would say. Also no indication for dow playing. Maybe a bit reluctant with shut downs of Carnevale, clubs and ski vacationing
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > Lack of leadership Really? The US was the first country to stop flights from China, as far as I recall. Were there other leaders anywhere who did the same? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-cor...
  - tsbinz 7y ago
    Italy stopped flights from china before the US, it didn't work so well for them. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-ba...
    - petre 7y ago
      They've got it via Germany apparently. The decision to suspend all flights from China should have been taken earlier at EU level. Either that or we go back to border controls, which is what has actually happened at least in countries that still have operational checkpoints. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-scientists/coronavirus-may-have-reached-italy-from-germany-scientists-say-idUSKBN20Y35B https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...
    - tomp 7y ago
      US has much better control of its borders than Italy (being part of Schengen zone).
  - dannyr 7y ago
    No US airports until a few days ago screened arriving passengers. They were not asked if they came from regions with large outbreaks. After a month from 1st infection, less than 2000 tests was conducted in the US. Right now, it's 12,000+ tests which is the lowest tests per million in the world. Schools, theaters, theme parks are closed. Sports events are suspended. What other evidence do you need that there is lack of leadership?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bamboozled 7y ago
Not looking forward to watching these “leaders” panic once the real existential threat really gets into the final stages. The climate emergency. This dress rehearsal hasn’t gone well.
- avip 7y ago
  You are using past tense to describe an emerging event. I agree, very few nations took the required decisive actions. We've wasted all the time China gave us.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    > We've wasted all the time China gave us. China did it to themselves in the first place. They silenced the early warnings about the epidemic, and did not acknowledge anything until it was already too late in Wuhan. It could have ended right there had they been more serious to begin with.
    - llampx 7y ago
      Weeks after the total shutdown in Wuhan, the President of the United States went on TV to say that it was little more than a flu. Same with the leaders in Europe. I'd say they absolutely dropped the ball.
  - makomk 7y ago
    As far as I can tell, the only way to contain this would've been if every county on the planet had cut off travellers from China in January and tracked down and quarantined those already in the country - something China actively campaigned against with the support of the WHO. All of the countries that have contained this relied on that combined with contact tracing and testing once one became available, even China itself. Just testing and tracing alone hasn't worked anywhere. So it's less "wasted all the time China gave us" and more "trusted what China was saying, not what they were doing".
    - KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
throw_m239339 7y ago
> Whether it's pandemics, global warming or nuclear weapons this lack of cooperation shows up again and again. Because it's everybody for themselves. What do you want, a world government? Of course there is no coordinated answer.
- phs318u 7y ago
  > What do you want, a world government? Well, if it were reasonably run, why not? Imagine a world where the trillions going into the military were spent in other ways? Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? Would that be so horrible? So much more terrible than what we have now? Of course, it will never happen. See earlier poster’s point about people not being able to cooperate.
  - throw_m239339 7y ago
    > Well, if it were reasonably run, why not? Imagine a world where the trillions going into the military were spent in other ways? Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? Would that be so horrible? So much more terrible than what we have now? These trillions would be spent oppressing you for a change. A "world government" cannot be anything but a complete bloody dictatorship.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - neuro_image3 7y ago
      The libertarian propaganda runs deep in the west.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Rejecting the premise does not invalidate the argument. It’s at least possible for a world government to be reasonably run.
      - thu2111 7y ago
FlorianRappl 7y ago
My key takeaway, too. I am not worried we will pass NCov19 - we surely will. I am afraid we won't learn anything from it. We surely need to invest more into health policies and reaction to pandemics. We need to be more conservative about spending resources. We should communicate and coordinate better. Right now I feel like a lot of actions just prevent the spread (good), but not so many measures for the long-term play are being instantiated. Let's hope I am wrong. Personally, I think the current situation could be the beginning of a new and better era. It could strengthen remote work, less travel, less global dependencies, digitalization, local economies, and the environment. The next virus could be a lot more harmful ...
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  Let me put your mind at ease: we will learn nothing. I’m sure epidemiologists and other scientists will learn a lot about the spread of pandemics and coronavirus. As a society though... For an institution to learn there have to be consequences for failure. The US is so hyper-polarized that these won’t materialize for anyone involved. You can already see the circling of wagons and history being re-written in real time (on this site even). Investment in healthcare (including pandemics) will continue to follow party lines.
kjakm 7y ago
This is happening on the individual level too. The panic buying of items like toilet roll + pasta in places the virus hasn't even taken hold yet is a stark reminder of how utterly selfish some people can be. Sadly the people that will end up with difficulties are the less selfish people who now can't get essential items even when there is zero need for them to be scarce. Edit: As an example: I would like one bottle of hand sanitiser. That should last quite a while (nobody needs boxes and boxes of the stuff) and it would be very useful. I cannot buy it anywhere either IRL or online. As a last resort I just checked eBay. I found a 500ml approx bottle of Purrell for £17. Insane but given it would be very useful to have I almost bought it. Then I noticed the postage price was £100. The crazy part is that this person has sold quite a few of these according to eBay. You can claim this is the free market and supply/demand etc.etc. all you want but that doesn't make it ok. It's still incredibly selfish behaviour. Edit 2: Any explanation for the downvotes? I almost self-censored my comment on the free market as I thought it might lead to downvotes - decided to go ahead with it anyway. If you disagree with anything I've said starting a discussion is much more productive than hiding something you don't like.
- IanDrake 7y ago
  Re: down votes. HN isn't a forum for people to disagree and discuss. It's a hive mind where dissenters are punished via down votes for hurt feelings. Regarding people being selfish... There is nothing selfish about self preservation. The problem is we have a negative view on "price gouging" which is just economic triage. There wouldn't be a run on toilet paper if it cost 10x the normal price. It costs you nothing to stock up, so people do.
  - kjakm 7y ago
    >> Regarding people being selfish... There is nothing selfish about self preservation. No, but purchasing much more of an item that you are ever likely going to need (at the cost of everyone who isn't doing that) is selfish. Stock up on enough essentials to get you through a self-quarantine period (2-3 weeks). Don't buy enough to last the next 12 months because a) it's completely unnecessary and b) you're preventing other people stocking up enough to cover a self-quarantine period.
dustingetz 7y ago
Tragedy of the Commons Prisoners Dilemma Game of Chicken However lack of cooperation has been solved in the past. We are not killing each other anymore (a backstab/backstab outcome of prisoner's dilemma). We coordinated cooperation here for shared values. It's time for better values. A good, simple set of values that everyone recognizes could spread very quickly in today's era of global light-speed communication networks.
chongli 7y ago
All problems of this scale are coordination problems. Inability to coordinate effectively on a large scale is the fundamental problem of humanity. If we could coordinate then there’d be no poverty, war, or famine. Disease outbreaks like this one would be slowed dramatically as well.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
This shouldn't be a surprise really, the human brain does not have the capability to coherently reason and act consistently over long time and distance horizons. We're just not designed to be able to take third and fourth order effects into consideration in our day to day decisions at scale. Just look at the current pandemic and this toilet paper stuff. We smoke, we drink alcohol, we don't count externalities in our consumption etc... The best thing we can do is build systems that nudge us to making better decisions in the longer term.

corpMaverick 7y ago

Lack of leadership. That happens when the most powerful man in the world is an idiot that doesn't believe in multilateral cooperation.

leto_ii 7y ago
Trump is part of the problem, for sure, but it seems to me that a world that is strongly divided into nation-states is just not able to effectively tackle pan-national threats. Even at an individual level we're so used to thinking in terms of 'our country vs. the rest' that our ability to empathize with people from 'far-away' is impeded.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  I’ve literally heard this virus be called “foreign”, like it identifies with a nationality etc.
  - sorokod 7y ago
    Quote: "This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history"
- buboard 7y ago
  OTOH it s increased international travel that causes the acuteness of these pandemics
- natmaka 7y ago
  Any "pan-national" effort implies massive transportation of goods/specialists. All this will let the virus thrive. Moreover such pan-national tackling will let the apparently most adequate response be adopted, therefore if it fails too badly we may be all wiped out because it will fail everywhere. Such a major pandemic is only possible thanks to our current population densities, massive transportation of persons/goods. Our central administrations were, as usual, patently totally unable to cope and even in some cases their very actions amplify the threat (cops in Wuhan silencing the local doc who early understood the threat, grotesque CDC actions in the US...), and are always pushing towards more densely populated huge territories for them to 'administer'. ... and further transportation of persons/goods and centralization of control should be in order?
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    In developed countries, I see no reason why there would be any need for "massive transportation" of either goods or specialists at a scale that would make a significant difference to viral spread. Even if it were necessary, mitigation measures are neither difficult nor expensive. Perhaps we could just leave it to the markets. They've done such a good job of providing robust and affordable healthcare in the US, markets can surely handle an international viral outbreak simply by maximising efficiency and ROI.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      >In developed countries, I see no reason why there would be any need for "massive transportation" of either goods or specialists at a scale that would make a significant difference to viral spread. Because of economies of scale and specialization? It's often cheaper for one place to produce a lot of a narrow list of goods and trade that for the goods they're lacking rather than every place making everything they use. This means that a lot of goods need to be moved around and a lot of people too. >Even if it were necessary, mitigation measures are neither difficult nor expensive. Like what? Shut down international travel? Test every person coming into a country for a new disease? Both of these are very expensive, especially the former.
    - natmaka 7y ago
- Mirioron 7y ago
  But it makes sense to think that way. The ones who know the local situation best are the locals, not bureaucrats thousands of miles away. And when it comes to empathy, then those bureaucrats tend to have little of it towards the people affected by essentially any problem that doesn't affect where they are.
  - leto_ii 7y ago
    I don't get why coordination is equated by many people with centralization. You can agree on a set of measures that should be taken by everybody under certain circumstances and then let individual countries apply those measures.
robk 7y ago
Please check your trump derangement syndrome. He's not the cause of all the world problems.
- atoav 7y ago
  Although this wasn't exclusively about the US: Most issues the US now has, indeed existed before Trump became president — so much is true. Yet Trump still is the worst president you could have at that point in time. Nearly a month into the whole thing he decides it would be a good thing to call the virus a hoax, disregard expert advice and ultimately acts (as he usually does) purely on symbolical plane by blaming it on foreigners and closing the border. Closing the dissease control unit Obama built in the white house is only the cherry on top. Nothing to adress the issue of not beeing able to test people, there is no real oversight what is going on in the US. And quite frankly: if your leader's decisions are worse than throwing a dice, why even bother having him? Because it is more entertaining? In times of a pandemic you want to have something in leadership who does the unpopular thing, that ultimately stops the spread and saves the lives. Not someone who only thinks about themselves and changes their stance on the topic with every turn of the wind. But feel free to argue otherwise, if you know how the poststructuralist ways of trumpian confusion somehow help in times of a pandemic.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    He didn't call the virus a hoax ( https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re... ) and he's happy to have people on his task force who will publicly contradict him so he isn't flooding the response with compliant yes men ( https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-vaccine-push-back/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/politics/donald-trump-cor... ). The US is probably doing terribly because of the CDCs absolute fumble of the test kit debacle; but assessing Trump's response as good or bad will take a lot of time. His border closures, believe what you will, were totally in character and probably good ideas for this specific crisis.
    - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
101404 7y ago
Because the US is the only country in the world and Trump the only political leader in the world?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
atoav 7y ago
Living in Germany I don't really feel there is a lack of leadership. So far the politicians listened to expert advice which is precisely what I expect from them. And to oir luck the testing infrastructure in Germany is much better than in nearly every other nation (which also means the numbers are closer to reality than e.g. in Italy or the US). On top of that we have paid leave, so people who are showing symptoms can stay at home without worrying about money. This is a very different story in the US of course — but is it really only a leadership problem? Isn't it more of a systemic issue in the sense that now the weaknesses of e.g. certain centralized testing structures, not having universal healthcare etc come to light. Trump might be the worst president the US could have at that point in time, because he acts actively destructive on top of a system that hasn't that much ressilience anyways.
- mbeex 7y ago
  > So far the politicians listened to expert advice which is precisely what I expect from them. This is simply not true. The response of the Merkel administration is one of the slowest and inconsequential in whole Europe. Very probably accompanied by deliberately playing down death cases and infection numbers in general if anectotical information and comparison with the numbers of surrounding countries has any value.
  - kriro 7y ago
    I think they have handled it pretty well. I'm pretty sure they spent some time talking to experts. I've worked in a research project on crisis management before and have a very high opinion of the Robert Koch Institute which was one of the partners (and am generally quite critical of government organizations). Given the political infrastructure (states can make the decisions in many areas), I think the reaction was pretty good so far. One of the major concerns is always avoiding panics. I'm pretty sure they are balancing all official statements against that. Tbh. the most important thing for me is that you listen to experts and don't overreact.
    - wirrbel 7y ago
      In retrospect I think three things could have been handled better. Screening for fever at airports and clearer rules for self quarantining of people after traveling. Third point is control of medical and hygienic supply chains. Otherwise okish response I would say. Also no indication for dow playing. Maybe a bit reluctant with shut downs of Carnevale, clubs and ski vacationing
ekianjo 7y ago
> Lack of leadership Really? The US was the first country to stop flights from China, as far as I recall. Were there other leaders anywhere who did the same? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-cor...
- tsbinz 7y ago
  Italy stopped flights from china before the US, it didn't work so well for them. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-ba...
  - petre 7y ago
    They've got it via Germany apparently. The decision to suspend all flights from China should have been taken earlier at EU level. Either that or we go back to border controls, which is what has actually happened at least in countries that still have operational checkpoints. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-scientists/coronavirus-may-have-reached-italy-from-germany-scientists-say-idUSKBN20Y35B https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...
  - tomp 7y ago
    US has much better control of its borders than Italy (being part of Schengen zone).
- dannyr 7y ago
  No US airports until a few days ago screened arriving passengers. They were not asked if they came from regions with large outbreaks. After a month from 1st infection, less than 2000 tests was conducted in the US. Right now, it's 12,000+ tests which is the lowest tests per million in the world. Schools, theaters, theme parks are closed. Sports events are suspended. What other evidence do you need that there is lack of leadership?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bamboozled 7y ago

Not looking forward to watching these “leaders” panic once the real existential threat really gets into the final stages. The climate emergency. This dress rehearsal hasn’t gone well.

avip 7y ago
You are using past tense to describe an emerging event. I agree, very few nations took the required decisive actions. We've wasted all the time China gave us.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > We've wasted all the time China gave us. China did it to themselves in the first place. They silenced the early warnings about the epidemic, and did not acknowledge anything until it was already too late in Wuhan. It could have ended right there had they been more serious to begin with.
  - llampx 7y ago
    Weeks after the total shutdown in Wuhan, the President of the United States went on TV to say that it was little more than a flu. Same with the leaders in Europe. I'd say they absolutely dropped the ball.
- makomk 7y ago
  As far as I can tell, the only way to contain this would've been if every county on the planet had cut off travellers from China in January and tracked down and quarantined those already in the country - something China actively campaigned against with the support of the WHO. All of the countries that have contained this relied on that combined with contact tracing and testing once one became available, even China itself. Just testing and tracing alone hasn't worked anywhere. So it's less "wasted all the time China gave us" and more "trusted what China was saying, not what they were doing".
  - KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago

throw_m239339 7y ago

> Whether it's pandemics, global warming or nuclear weapons this lack of cooperation shows up again and again. Because it's everybody for themselves. What do you want, a world government? Of course there is no coordinated answer.

phs318u 7y ago
> What do you want, a world government? Well, if it were reasonably run, why not? Imagine a world where the trillions going into the military were spent in other ways? Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? Would that be so horrible? So much more terrible than what we have now? Of course, it will never happen. See earlier poster’s point about people not being able to cooperate.
- throw_m239339 7y ago
  > Well, if it were reasonably run, why not? Imagine a world where the trillions going into the military were spent in other ways? Where people weren’t arbitraged across artificial boundaries? Would that be so horrible? So much more terrible than what we have now? These trillions would be spent oppressing you for a change. A "world government" cannot be anything but a complete bloody dictatorship.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - neuro_image3 7y ago
    The libertarian propaganda runs deep in the west.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Rejecting the premise does not invalidate the argument. It’s at least possible for a world government to be reasonably run.
    - thu2111 7y ago

FlorianRappl 7y ago

My key takeaway, too. I am not worried we will pass NCov19 - we surely will. I am afraid we won't learn anything from it. We surely need to invest more into health policies and reaction to pandemics. We need to be more conservative about spending resources. We should communicate and coordinate better. Right now I feel like a lot of actions just prevent the spread (good), but not so many measures for the long-term play are being instantiated. Let's hope I am wrong. Personally, I think the current situation could be the beginning of a new and better era. It could strengthen remote work, less travel, less global dependencies, digitalization, local economies, and the environment. The next virus could be a lot more harmful ...

AlexandrB 7y ago
Let me put your mind at ease: we will learn nothing. I’m sure epidemiologists and other scientists will learn a lot about the spread of pandemics and coronavirus. As a society though... For an institution to learn there have to be consequences for failure. The US is so hyper-polarized that these won’t materialize for anyone involved. You can already see the circling of wagons and history being re-written in real time (on this site even). Investment in healthcare (including pandemics) will continue to follow party lines.

kjakm 7y ago

This is happening on the individual level too. The panic buying of items like toilet roll + pasta in places the virus hasn't even taken hold yet is a stark reminder of how utterly selfish some people can be. Sadly the people that will end up with difficulties are the less selfish people who now can't get essential items even when there is zero need for them to be scarce. Edit: As an example: I would like one bottle of hand sanitiser. That should last quite a while (nobody needs boxes and boxes of the stuff) and it would be very useful. I cannot buy it anywhere either IRL or online. As a last resort I just checked eBay. I found a 500ml approx bottle of Purrell for £17. Insane but given it would be very useful to have I almost bought it. Then I noticed the postage price was £100. The crazy part is that this person has sold quite a few of these according to eBay. You can claim this is the free market and supply/demand etc.etc. all you want but that doesn't make it ok. It's still incredibly selfish behaviour. Edit 2: Any explanation for the downvotes? I almost self-censored my comment on the free market as I thought it might lead to downvotes - decided to go ahead with it anyway. If you disagree with anything I've said starting a discussion is much more productive than hiding something you don't like.

IanDrake 7y ago
Re: down votes. HN isn't a forum for people to disagree and discuss. It's a hive mind where dissenters are punished via down votes for hurt feelings. Regarding people being selfish... There is nothing selfish about self preservation. The problem is we have a negative view on "price gouging" which is just economic triage. There wouldn't be a run on toilet paper if it cost 10x the normal price. It costs you nothing to stock up, so people do.
- kjakm 7y ago
  >> Regarding people being selfish... There is nothing selfish about self preservation. No, but purchasing much more of an item that you are ever likely going to need (at the cost of everyone who isn't doing that) is selfish. Stock up on enough essentials to get you through a self-quarantine period (2-3 weeks). Don't buy enough to last the next 12 months because a) it's completely unnecessary and b) you're preventing other people stocking up enough to cover a self-quarantine period.

dustingetz 7y ago

Tragedy of the Commons Prisoners Dilemma Game of Chicken However lack of cooperation has been solved in the past. We are not killing each other anymore (a backstab/backstab outcome of prisoner's dilemma). We coordinated cooperation here for shared values. It's time for better values. A good, simple set of values that everyone recognizes could spread very quickly in today's era of global light-speed communication networks.

chongli 7y ago

All problems of this scale are coordination problems. Inability to coordinate effectively on a large scale is the fundamental problem of humanity. If we could coordinate then there’d be no poverty, war, or famine. Disease outbreaks like this one would be slowed dramatically as well.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

This shouldn't be a surprise really, the human brain does not have the capability to coherently reason and act consistently over long time and distance horizons. We're just not designed to be able to take third and fourth order effects into consideration in our day to day decisions at scale. Just look at the current pandemic and this toilet paper stuff. We smoke, we drink alcohol, we don't count externalities in our consumption etc... The best thing we can do is build systems that nudge us to making better decisions in the longer term.