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If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. We're on the precipice of nuclear winter; the market is always abou

If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. We're on the precipice of nuclear winter; the market is always about to collapse. Bad things are always about to happen. There is always data and models that point to inevitable collapses. Sometimes these models are good, sometimes they aren't. Models are complex and have many variables. You have to pick and choose which are credible or probable. The models for COVID impact still vary widely. FiveThirtyEight discusses why it's so hard to model. [0] It's okay to be critical. But it's unrealistic to expect administrations to always get it right. The costs would be far too high to address every risk at the earliest potential signals. A broken clock is right twice a day. Can we be reactively responding to this with more testing, more PPE, etc.? Absolutely. [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-is-harder-than-forecasting-elections/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-...

ta999999171 7y ago
The market always being about to collapse part is actually true, as evidenced by all of the weakly-built companies folding like houses of cards when their cheap debt and demand ran out for ten minutes...
joshstrange 7y ago
> If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. You are confusing "every crisis" for "obvious crisis". I'm not saying we lose our minds over everything but it was quite clear to even the layman that wanted to do a little digging that this was a big deal and we needed to take it seriously back in February if not earlier. I agree we shouldn't all lock ourselves in bunkers over fears of being "on the precipice of nuclear winter" but by the same token if the missile has been launched maybe it's a good idea to go to your bunker or at least your basement. China (even with their underreporting) should have been enough, in the face of that Italy should have been a smack in the face. Instead our administration stood outside squinting at the sky and said "well I don't see the missile yet so I'm not going to react".
- ectospheno 7y ago
  Many "obvious crisis" scenarios are only obvious with the benefit of hindsight from a view safely on the sidelines. Some people being sick in one city in China in November doesn't "obviously" lead to this.
  - joshstrange 7y ago
    > Some people being sick in one city in China in November doesn't "obviously" lead to this. Agreed, but that reasoning loses all its weight when they didn’t act in December, January, or February. I’ve never said that we should have jumped to full alert in November but it should have happened a whole heck of a lot sooner than March.

ta999999171 7y ago

The market always being about to collapse part is actually true, as evidenced by all of the weakly-built companies folding like houses of cards when their cheap debt and demand ran out for ten minutes...

joshstrange 7y ago

> If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. You are confusing "every crisis" for "obvious crisis". I'm not saying we lose our minds over everything but it was quite clear to even the layman that wanted to do a little digging that this was a big deal and we needed to take it seriously back in February if not earlier. I agree we shouldn't all lock ourselves in bunkers over fears of being "on the precipice of nuclear winter" but by the same token if the missile has been launched maybe it's a good idea to go to your bunker or at least your basement. China (even with their underreporting) should have been enough, in the face of that Italy should have been a smack in the face. Instead our administration stood outside squinting at the sky and said "well I don't see the missile yet so I'm not going to react".

ectospheno 7y ago
Many "obvious crisis" scenarios are only obvious with the benefit of hindsight from a view safely on the sidelines. Some people being sick in one city in China in November doesn't "obviously" lead to this.
- joshstrange 7y ago
  > Some people being sick in one city in China in November doesn't "obviously" lead to this. Agreed, but that reasoning loses all its weight when they didn’t act in December, January, or February. I’ve never said that we should have jumped to full alert in November but it should have happened a whole heck of a lot sooner than March.