6 ms·

> We faltered because of our failure to consider risk in its full context, especially when dealing with coupled risk—when multiple things can go wrong together.

> We faltered because of our failure to consider risk in its full context, especially when dealing with coupled risk—when multiple things can go wrong together. We were hampered by our inability to think about second- and third-order effects and by our susceptibility to scientism—the false comfort of assuming that numbers and percentages give us a solid empirical basis. We failed to understand that complex systems defy simplistic reductionism. This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about this issue with some of my friends and on online boards. I haven't considered it before, but when I think about it now I realize that I see a clear distinction among those I have been talking to between those who have done an MSc or higher in an area such as physics, mathematics or computer science. (I don't mean to imply that those people are in some way more intelligent, but it goes to show how extended practice of systemic thinking and problem solving can prime us to better understand complex issues in general, or at least get a better approximation for our uncertainty and how that relates to risk) I also think there's the simple fact that the vast majority of even educated people have a hard time understanding simple statistics. There's been this notion that "Japan has handled the outbreak well" or, among the conspiratoricals, "the government is hiding the real numbers" where my take is that the data is just not there to make any kind of conclusion either way yet. And this is hardly a US issue - we see the same pattern most everywhere.

CarelessExpert 7y ago
> There's been this notion that "Japan has handled the outbreak well" or, among the conspiratoricals, "the government is hiding the real numbers" where my take is that the data is just not there to make any kind of conclusion either way yet. Because they aren't testing broadly in the population, which is a way of "hiding the real numbers" without it looking so nefarious... you just don't get real numbers and then there's nothing to hide. As a political tool it's a nice bit of sleight-of-hand, but as a public policy decision it's disastrous.
CPLX 7y ago
It's more interesting than that even. The study of Complex Adaptive Systems[1] is pretty fascinating, and is a somewhat systematic way of getting at the concepts being mentioned in this quote. It's definitely science it's just a different focus, where you spend a lot more effort looking at the emergent and often unpredictable properties of an adaptive system with autonomous components. This isn't exactly some groundbreaking theory at this point, it emerged in the late 80's or so and had a mild pop culture moment[2] but it's still pretty handy for providing a framework and some language for understanding and discussing situations like the one described here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system [2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WVV5J2R/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WVV5J2R/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
heavenlyblue 7y ago
> This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about this issue with some of my friends and on online boards. You are not the only one who is like that in my circle. What did you do with your knowledge to prepare for this epidemic?
- Legogris 7y ago
  Honestly, I was (perhaps part knowingly) uninformed and ignorant until the spread outside of China started making the news, so nothing worth noting until the past 4 weeks or so. Yourself?
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    That was me too. I have many people though being hyper-vigilant about the news however they practically did nothing to prepare for it. So why bother?
sigsergv 7y ago
> I also think there's the simple fact that the vast majority of even educated people have a hard time understanding simple statistics. I'm educated and I don't see valid statistics. Without total comprehensive direct and antibodies tests we just don't have valid statistics data. We MUST test everyone (in proper statistical sense) to obtain valid data to work with. Instead we got all media histerically fixated upon single topic and hence total panic.
- Legogris 7y ago
  Precisely my point.

CarelessExpert 7y ago

> There's been this notion that "Japan has handled the outbreak well" or, among the conspiratoricals, "the government is hiding the real numbers" where my take is that the data is just not there to make any kind of conclusion either way yet. Because they aren't testing broadly in the population, which is a way of "hiding the real numbers" without it looking so nefarious... you just don't get real numbers and then there's nothing to hide. As a political tool it's a nice bit of sleight-of-hand, but as a public policy decision it's disastrous.

CPLX 7y ago

It's more interesting than that even. The study of Complex Adaptive Systems[1] is pretty fascinating, and is a somewhat systematic way of getting at the concepts being mentioned in this quote. It's definitely science it's just a different focus, where you spend a lot more effort looking at the emergent and often unpredictable properties of an adaptive system with autonomous components. This isn't exactly some groundbreaking theory at this point, it emerged in the late 80's or so and had a mild pop culture moment[2] but it's still pretty handy for providing a framework and some language for understanding and discussing situations like the one described here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system [2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WVV5J2R/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WVV5J2R/ref=dbs_a_def_r...

heavenlyblue 7y ago

> This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about this issue with some of my friends and on online boards. You are not the only one who is like that in my circle. What did you do with your knowledge to prepare for this epidemic?

Legogris 7y ago
Honestly, I was (perhaps part knowingly) uninformed and ignorant until the spread outside of China started making the news, so nothing worth noting until the past 4 weeks or so. Yourself?
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  That was me too. I have many people though being hyper-vigilant about the news however they practically did nothing to prepare for it. So why bother?

sigsergv 7y ago

> I also think there's the simple fact that the vast majority of even educated people have a hard time understanding simple statistics. I'm educated and I don't see valid statistics. Without total comprehensive direct and antibodies tests we just don't have valid statistics data. We MUST test everyone (in proper statistical sense) to obtain valid data to work with. Instead we got all media histerically fixated upon single topic and hence total panic.

Legogris 7y ago
Precisely my point.