5 ms·

How can something be a disaster if it needs retrospective analysis years later to come to that conclusion?

gojomo 6y ago
Lots of public health disasters only become clear in retrospect, sometimes decades or even centuries later: lead-in-gasoline, air-pollution's effects on all-cause mortality & mental acuity, nuclear testing fallout, the collapse of pre-Columbian populations in the Americas.
- mdifrgechd 6y ago
  And lots of media fed panics also only become clear in retrospect, e.g. Y2K.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    Like many of these things, disentangling exactly what is what can be hard. If the media had ignored Y2K, I have no doubt that it would have been much worse as many companies, probably on the smaller end, weren't aware random bits of software was susceptible, weren't updated from vendors (who probably had little contact after the sale) about possible problems and updates, etc. Sure, maybe IBM and Microsoft and the banks and Airlines would all be fine, but if a lot of small to mid-size accountancy firms all of a sudden couldn't process payroll for companies or deal with day-to-day needs of their clients, that could very quickly have gotten really had and had knock-on effects, and that's one industry. The best case scenario for COVID-19 would have been everyone heeding the media and staying in for a few weeks early on and it petering out. Everyone would have said it was just a media fed panic then, but obviously, it's a bit more complicated in that case, because that didn't happen (or at least didn't happen enough for that outcome).
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    How the heck was Y2K a “media fed panic”? Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”.
    - disown 6y ago
      > How the heck was Y2K a “media fed panic”? Because media hyped it up? > They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”. No they didn't. Why are you lying. They made it sound like a potential end of the world/civilization. It's why everyone remembers Y2K. If they reported it benignly like you claimed, we wouldn't remember Y2K. We wouldn't be talking about it 20 years later. The only reason anyone remembers Y2K was because the media hyped it.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        disown 6y ago
        > Okay actually I don’t care how downvoted I get but calm the fuck down. Why would you get downvoted. People who lie tend to get upvoted. People who tell the truth usually get downvoted here. > I’m not lying. You claimed that : "Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”." That is objectively false. > My personal experience doesn’t match yours. You weren't talking about personal experience. You were talking about how the news reported it - objective reality. "Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”." > What the fuck is wrong with you? No need for this. Why double down instead of admitting that you were wrong?
        dang 6y ago
        Saying something false is different from lying. A person can simply be mistaken. Lying implies that they know the truth and seek to deceive. That makes what you said a personal attack, and you can't post like that on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. We've had to ask you about this multiple times already, and if you can't or won't use HN as intended we're going to end up banning you. I don't want to ban you so can you please fix this?
- thu2111 6y ago
  However COVID was described as being like none of those. It was described as "panic right now, exponential growth will overwhelm hospitals within days". If COVID was really a disaster that should have been apparent in Sweden within a week or two of their decision to diverge from the more commonly recommended approach.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
In most cases we know history about: the people experiencing disaster and the people retrospectively discovering it have very little social overlap

Lots of public health disasters only become clear in retrospect, sometimes decades or even centuries later: lead-in-gasoline, air-pollution's effects on all-cause mortality & mental acuity, nuclear testing fallout, the collapse of pre-Columbian populations in the Americas.

mdifrgechd 6y ago
And lots of media fed panics also only become clear in retrospect, e.g. Y2K.
- kbenson 6y ago
  Like many of these things, disentangling exactly what is what can be hard. If the media had ignored Y2K, I have no doubt that it would have been much worse as many companies, probably on the smaller end, weren't aware random bits of software was susceptible, weren't updated from vendors (who probably had little contact after the sale) about possible problems and updates, etc. Sure, maybe IBM and Microsoft and the banks and Airlines would all be fine, but if a lot of small to mid-size accountancy firms all of a sudden couldn't process payroll for companies or deal with day-to-day needs of their clients, that could very quickly have gotten really had and had knock-on effects, and that's one industry. The best case scenario for COVID-19 would have been everyone heeding the media and staying in for a few weeks early on and it petering out. Everyone would have said it was just a media fed panic then, but obviously, it's a bit more complicated in that case, because that didn't happen (or at least didn't happen enough for that outcome).
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  How the heck was Y2K a “media fed panic”? Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”.
  - disown 6y ago
    > How the heck was Y2K a “media fed panic”? Because media hyped it up? > They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”. No they didn't. Why are you lying. They made it sound like a potential end of the world/civilization. It's why everyone remembers Y2K. If they reported it benignly like you claimed, we wouldn't remember Y2K. We wouldn't be talking about it 20 years later. The only reason anyone remembers Y2K was because the media hyped it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
      - disown 6y ago
        > Okay actually I don’t care how downvoted I get but calm the fuck down. Why would you get downvoted. People who lie tend to get upvoted. People who tell the truth usually get downvoted here. > I’m not lying. You claimed that : "Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”." That is objectively false. > My personal experience doesn’t match yours. You weren't talking about personal experience. You were talking about how the news reported it - objective reality. "Media barely knew how to report tech at all, and barely knew how to explain what was at risk with Y2K. They mostly reported it as “might be a problem the clock is counting and we shall wait and see”." > What the fuck is wrong with you? No need for this. Why double down instead of admitting that you were wrong?
        dang 6y ago
        Saying something false is different from lying. A person can simply be mistaken. Lying implies that they know the truth and seek to deceive. That makes what you said a personal attack, and you can't post like that on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. We've had to ask you about this multiple times already, and if you can't or won't use HN as intended we're going to end up banning you. I don't want to ban you so can you please fix this?
thu2111 6y ago
However COVID was described as being like none of those. It was described as "panic right now, exponential growth will overwhelm hospitals within days". If COVID was really a disaster that should have been apparent in Sweden within a week or two of their decision to diverge from the more commonly recommended approach.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

In most cases we know history about: the people experiencing disaster and the people retrospectively discovering it have very little social overlap