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There was never a shortage in the first place, I honestly do not understand the pathology of this, except that a totally unrelated and tragic situation in Venez

by ljm 7y ago

There was never a shortage in the first place, I honestly do not understand the pathology of this, except that a totally unrelated and tragic situation in Venezuela got dumbed down in the west as being a toilet roll shortage. I'm almost grateful for it; we're hitting peak America, peak capitalism, peak Westernism...

colechristensen 7y ago
"Panic buying" makes good local news. Empty shelves get attention. On social media, everywhere. Stop the attention economy and you stop this nonsense. But also, put these pressures on stores and supply chains and they'll learn to be more elastic which is _necessary_. If demand for a good skyrockets and everybody wants a good inventory at home, it shouldn't be a social evil to go stock up on a month or two of TP, on surgical masks for personal safety, on whatever. We should have all been able to buy as many surgical masks as we wanted whenever we wanted, we would all be safer if that had been possible. Shorten lead times and have faster ability to adjust capacity and _you make more money_. The only peak I hope we're hitting is peak idiocy, where a large portion of people (actually the vast majority of people) choose to elect leaders based on emotional appeal to a chosen sect instead of using reason and valuing real competence. The peaks I fear we're hitting are peak personal freedom, peak democracy, and peak privacy. There is a cost, in lives, in not being able to do what China has done to limit and nearly stop the outbreak (once they decided it couldn't be blustered away). I hope we're able, willing, and eager to pay that cost and figure out when it is worth it and when it is not.
Izkata 7y ago
The story I heard was that it started with an unconfirmed rumour (possibly completely made up) on social media about it happening in Hong Kong because of people making makeshift masks out of it, the western media picked up on it from Twitter & co, then accidentally created the panic buying in the rest of the world.

by ljm 7y ago

colechristensen 7y ago

"Panic buying" makes good local news. Empty shelves get attention. On social media, everywhere. Stop the attention economy and you stop this nonsense. But also, put these pressures on stores and supply chains and they'll learn to be more elastic which is _necessary_. If demand for a good skyrockets and everybody wants a good inventory at home, it shouldn't be a social evil to go stock up on a month or two of TP, on surgical masks for personal safety, on whatever. We should have all been able to buy as many surgical masks as we wanted whenever we wanted, we would all be safer if that had been possible. Shorten lead times and have faster ability to adjust capacity and _you make more money_. The only peak I hope we're hitting is peak idiocy, where a large portion of people (actually the vast majority of people) choose to elect leaders based on emotional appeal to a chosen sect instead of using reason and valuing real competence. The peaks I fear we're hitting are peak personal freedom, peak democracy, and peak privacy. There is a cost, in lives, in not being able to do what China has done to limit and nearly stop the outbreak (once they decided it couldn't be blustered away). I hope we're able, willing, and eager to pay that cost and figure out when it is worth it and when it is not.

Izkata 7y ago

The story I heard was that it started with an unconfirmed rumour (possibly completely made up) on social media about it happening in Hong Kong because of people making makeshift masks out of it, the western media picked up on it from Twitter & co, then accidentally created the panic buying in the rest of the world.