5 ms·

> A very large portion of my circles was aware that COVID was about to explode (...) Your circles seem to be the exception then. There are a lot of factors tha

by tcgv 7y ago

> A very large portion of my circles was aware that COVID was about to explode (...) Your circles seem to be the exception then. There are a lot of factors that affect personal perception of such matters, like proximity to inflicted areas, professional background (ex: medical), experiencing similar events in the past, etc. In hindsight it seems obvious that the world wasn't paying attention. But it took until February for western countries to realize the epidemic was already out of control, and the markets reacted. > prevention measures would either drastically slow the economy or not be taken and the impact would be worse Anyone that knew this last month without a doubt could've made tons of money shorting positions in the stock market.

ellyagg 7y ago
He's probably talking about the rationalist community, and people did. https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1233174331133284353 https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1233174331133284353
- eropple 7y ago
  I assure you I am not talking about the aggressive curve-fitting community. Just...normal people. Nobody famous, not even any Chinese nationals. Just...fairly normal, if tech-worker-y, Americans and Europeans.
  - smnrchrds 7y ago
    By and large, both the general public and organizations were caught by surprise. If most people knew, the stocks would have tanked in January, not these past few days. Which brings an interesting question: how many of all the people you know who knew, yourself included, put their skin in the game and are now rich from the options they bought in January? If it is not many, I would argue it is better to say people suspected or feared, not that they knew.
    - eropple 7y ago
      It's a real big stretch from "certain enough to take personal precautions" to "is a stock head and wants to throw down puts". You get that normal people don't really give a damn about the stock market, yeah? Put a gun to my head and I can't tell you how a put works and I don't really care--I'm too busy buying a house. I did, however, rebalance almost entirely out of stocks three weeks ago and while I am not "now rich", my portfolio is doing a hell of a lot better than most folks'.
      - ivanche 7y ago
        Out of curiosity, do you have any plan when and why to go back in stocks? I'm currently 20% stocks (ETFs really), 5% bonds, 75% cash. I only plan to continue buying stocks and bonds every month, as usual (so, DCA).
        tcgv 7y ago
        https://www.capitalgroup.com/individual/planning/investing-fundamentals/time-not-timing-is-what-matters.html https://www.capitalgroup.com/individual/planning/investing-f...
        eropple 7y ago
        50% tends to be near enough the bottom for these kinds of things that that's when I'll rebalance my retirement fund. I'm going to keep my brokerage out longer as I have shorter-term needs for that money.
      - californical 7y ago
        +1 to this. I'd been worrying since mid-late January, and aggressively telling people since early February that this was going to be bad... but even a week ago, tons of people that I talked to were thinking that this was such an overreaction and would blow over. Just couldn't believe it, even after seeing how it went in Italy, a majority of people said the US would never have that problem. I didn't even know that a "put" on the stock market was a thing until last week, and am not particularly interested in figuring out how to do that... But I did back out of buying a car because I thought I'd be better off to have the cash when this gets bad, and here we are now in this thread... Maybe next time (hopefully there isn't one) I'll figure out more of what a "put" actually is and how to get one
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
caseysoftware 7y ago
Trump announced the China travel ban on Jan 31 - effective Feb 2nd - which was over 6 weeks ago. Even then he was called names and the "it's just the flu" mantra started. Huge segments of the world saw what was coming and started moving, most didn't move far enough fast enough. Ref: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117403/trump-coronavirus-ban-travel-non-us-citizens-china https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117403/trump-coronaviru...
- wbl 7y ago
  Trump had no backup plan for when, not if, a case went undetected in the US. He didn't start stockpiling masks and ventilators until much later.
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    I agree. He didn't move far enough fast enough. The public's awareness and preparation was slowed by the media (NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, others) screaming "it's just the flu!" until just a couple weeks ago so most weren't prepared. :( My comment was in response to people not realizing this was a thing a month ago.
    - martinpw 7y ago
      I think it was other news organizations than the ones you listed that were the primary culprits in screaming "it's just the flu"
      - caseysoftware 7y ago
        Read https://twitter.com/balajis https://twitter.com/balajis starting early February and documented many of the posts. He was one of the earliest to call out their BS and anti-scientific agenda. And then the House tried to remove Trump's travel ban: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/house-committee-votes-to-rescind-trump-travel-ban-114649 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/house-committee-vot... You can play politics or you can look at reality.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hef19898 7y ago
A lot of this seems to be "I told you so". And yet, I have a hard time believing anybody could have foreseen an almost complete shutdown of the global economy over this. A lot of the "we saw that coming" can be boiled down to "it will be bad". But even if you saw it coming, how does this help now? Right, it doesn't. That someone's circles saw it coming doesn't help. Wht you can do now helps. Unfortunately a lot of these folks are lacking in that department IMHO.
- 101404 7y ago
  SARS1 didn't have this effect. MERS didn't have this effect. And a number of other recent viruses didn't either. But every time there were people "predicting" the worst. This time they were coindentially correct. Not because they "knew", but because chance.

by tcgv 7y ago

ellyagg 7y ago

He's probably talking about the rationalist community, and people did. https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1233174331133284353 https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1233174331133284353

eropple 7y ago
I assure you I am not talking about the aggressive curve-fitting community. Just...normal people. Nobody famous, not even any Chinese nationals. Just...fairly normal, if tech-worker-y, Americans and Europeans.
- smnrchrds 7y ago
  By and large, both the general public and organizations were caught by surprise. If most people knew, the stocks would have tanked in January, not these past few days. Which brings an interesting question: how many of all the people you know who knew, yourself included, put their skin in the game and are now rich from the options they bought in January? If it is not many, I would argue it is better to say people suspected or feared, not that they knew.
  - eropple 7y ago
    It's a real big stretch from "certain enough to take personal precautions" to "is a stock head and wants to throw down puts". You get that normal people don't really give a damn about the stock market, yeah? Put a gun to my head and I can't tell you how a put works and I don't really care--I'm too busy buying a house. I did, however, rebalance almost entirely out of stocks three weeks ago and while I am not "now rich", my portfolio is doing a hell of a lot better than most folks'.
    - ivanche 7y ago
      Out of curiosity, do you have any plan when and why to go back in stocks? I'm currently 20% stocks (ETFs really), 5% bonds, 75% cash. I only plan to continue buying stocks and bonds every month, as usual (so, DCA).
      - tcgv 7y ago
        https://www.capitalgroup.com/individual/planning/investing-fundamentals/time-not-timing-is-what-matters.html https://www.capitalgroup.com/individual/planning/investing-f...
      - eropple 7y ago
        50% tends to be near enough the bottom for these kinds of things that that's when I'll rebalance my retirement fund. I'm going to keep my brokerage out longer as I have shorter-term needs for that money.
    - californical 7y ago
      +1 to this. I'd been worrying since mid-late January, and aggressively telling people since early February that this was going to be bad... but even a week ago, tons of people that I talked to were thinking that this was such an overreaction and would blow over. Just couldn't believe it, even after seeing how it went in Italy, a majority of people said the US would never have that problem. I didn't even know that a "put" on the stock market was a thing until last week, and am not particularly interested in figuring out how to do that... But I did back out of buying a car because I thought I'd be better off to have the cash when this gets bad, and here we are now in this thread... Maybe next time (hopefully there isn't one) I'll figure out more of what a "put" actually is and how to get one

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

caseysoftware 7y ago

Trump announced the China travel ban on Jan 31 - effective Feb 2nd - which was over 6 weeks ago. Even then he was called names and the "it's just the flu" mantra started. Huge segments of the world saw what was coming and started moving, most didn't move far enough fast enough. Ref: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117403/trump-coronavirus-ban-travel-non-us-citizens-china https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117403/trump-coronaviru...

wbl 7y ago
Trump had no backup plan for when, not if, a case went undetected in the US. He didn't start stockpiling masks and ventilators until much later.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  I agree. He didn't move far enough fast enough. The public's awareness and preparation was slowed by the media (NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, others) screaming "it's just the flu!" until just a couple weeks ago so most weren't prepared. :( My comment was in response to people not realizing this was a thing a month ago.
  - martinpw 7y ago
    I think it was other news organizations than the ones you listed that were the primary culprits in screaming "it's just the flu"
    - caseysoftware 7y ago
      Read https://twitter.com/balajis https://twitter.com/balajis starting early February and documented many of the posts. He was one of the earliest to call out their BS and anti-scientific agenda. And then the House tried to remove Trump's travel ban: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/house-committee-votes-to-rescind-trump-travel-ban-114649 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/house-committee-vot... You can play politics or you can look at reality.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hef19898 7y ago

A lot of this seems to be "I told you so". And yet, I have a hard time believing anybody could have foreseen an almost complete shutdown of the global economy over this. A lot of the "we saw that coming" can be boiled down to "it will be bad". But even if you saw it coming, how does this help now? Right, it doesn't. That someone's circles saw it coming doesn't help. Wht you can do now helps. Unfortunately a lot of these folks are lacking in that department IMHO.

101404 7y ago
SARS1 didn't have this effect. MERS didn't have this effect. And a number of other recent viruses didn't either. But every time there were people "predicting" the worst. This time they were coindentially correct. Not because they "knew", but because chance.