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It's hard to tell why you might want to listen to this from just the title: "But Taiwan has also been taking a relatively experimental approach to the pandemic

It's hard to tell why you might want to listen to this from just the title: "But Taiwan has also been taking a relatively experimental approach to the pandemic with technology. Like working with civic hackers to code its way out of the pandemic. Today on the show, we dive into Taiwan's pandemic policies and ask: Would the U.S. ever take a similar approach?"

zbrozek 6y ago
Things like the "where do I get masks" map don't seem antithetical to personal privacy the way a contact tracing tool is. That's pretty low-hanging fruit that we didn't appear to make any attempt to pick.
- ISL 6y ago
  Volunteer groups like findthemasks did, but in a get-PPE-to-hospitals context. I am unaware of a US implementation of a direct copy of the Taiwanese webapp. In the US through at least May, health authorities were scrambling to get enough PPE to keep the healthcare system functional.
- adrianmonk 6y ago
  Not to mention the scrapped plan to just simply mail masks to every US household: https://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/white-house-axed-usps-plan-to-send-5-masks-to-every-american-household/ https://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/white-house-axed-usps-p...
- awnird 6y ago
  I don't think a Masks Map would work in a country where the population believes COVID is fake, and masks are an Islamic plot. Don't you have to address those fundamental issues first?
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Trump and QAnon followers in the US don't just believe COVID is fake, they commonly throw tantrums, threaten, and actively attack, and even murder people wearing masks and asking them to wear masks. QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene Refuses to Wear Mask at Congressional Swearing-In https://news.yahoo.com/qanon-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-greene-175851346.html https://news.yahoo.com/qanon-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-g... St. Louis County man threatens to 'shoot up' church over mask request https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/st-louis-county-man-threatens-to-shoot-up-church-over-mask-request https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/st-louis-county-man-threaten... Family Charged In Security Guard's Death After Mask Dispute https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850618310/family-charged-in-murder-of-security-guard-after-mask-dispute https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... US family 'murdered shop guard for enforcing mask policy' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52540266 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52540266 NYPD: Woman Attacked By Couple After Asking Them To Wear Face Masks In Elevator https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/18/brooklyn-face-mask-attack/ https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/18/brooklyn-face-mask-a... ATTACKED FOR WEARING MY MASK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII1ST3Z2Xk&ab_channel=JonFoor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII1ST3Z2Xk&ab_channel=JonFo... Men attack Target employee after refusing to wear face mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI5Xbw4ec-0&ab_channel=WPLGLocal10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI5Xbw4ec-0&ab_channel=WPLGL... Woman attacked in N.J. Staples after asking customer to wear mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kJWYt_foY&ab_channel=NJ.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kJWYt_foY&ab_channel=NJ.co... There are many other examples.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Contact tracing isn't antithetical to personal privacy. I suppose you can say it compromises absolute personal privacy, but so does someone seeing you in a store, so it's not very interesting. Singapore has certainly decided to show how bad it can be, but the root of that is an authoritarian mandate, not the contact tracing itself.
  - zbrozek 6y ago
    Good luck convincing many people in the US of the same. I'm certainly not convinced. As you point out, Singapore has already abused the system. If some abuse is technically possible, it's probably already happening. But there's a lot of room outside of "do nothing" and "omnipresent perfect surveillance" to do good things with civic technology, including non-pandemic stuff. Why aren't all public records online and searchable through a single engine? Or all forms editable and submittable? Or budgets and financial reports navigable or comparable? I'd love to be able to know how some random municipality is going to gouge me before I move there. There's loads of room for good solutions for these and tons of other pain points. But as far as I can tell, American government is scared of letting go so the private sector can develop these things. And it's not imaginative or technically competent enough to want or develop this kind of stuff on its own. Or maybe it's not organized or unified enough?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Singapore isn't making some dubious technical violation of their system, they are putting in place a top down mandate requiring it. My point is that it is a consequence of their politics more than of the contact tracing being technically possible.
tt433 6y ago
I'll address why one would listen: to learn about some ways not to be the epicenter of a pandemic ever again.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  > not to be the epicenter of a pandemic Are we talking about the US? In what metric is the USA the epicenter? In deaths per capita? In infections per capita? I’m pretty sure US leads in testing per capita. I’m not being snarky, I really don’t know if you are referring to USA, and in what way.
  - zaphod4prez 6y ago
    We have a very high number of cases per capita, and while we do perform a lot of tests, it's not like we lead in tests per capita. [Here's a good graph to play around with](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=earliest..latest&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~ARG~BEL~BLR~BOL~BGR~CHN~COL~COM~CUB~DNK~EuropeanUnion~Europe~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MEX~MDA&region=World&testsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=ea...). We are middling to low in terms of tests per confirmed case (aka its not just that we're performing more tests than others), [here's that graph](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-10-15..latest&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~ARG~BEL~BLR~BOL~BGR~CHN~COL~COM~CUB~DNK~EuropeanUnion~Europe~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MEX~MDA&region=World&testsPerCaseMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...). And our case fatality rate is pretty good but not amazing (among first-world countries at least) [graph](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-11-10..2020-12-19&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~BEL~BLR~BGR~CHN~COM~CUB~DNK~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MDA~BHR~NLD~NZL~NOR~PRT~QAT~RUS&region=World&cfrMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...) ([Here's US vs World + regions CFR](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-11-10..2020-12-19&country=USA~OWID_WRL~Europe~SouthAmerica~Asia~Africa&region=World&cfrMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...)). Note, you have to play around w selecting different countries and dates on that website, I wish they had some kind "select by GDP quartile" or something.
Shivetya 6y ago
read the transcript, link at the bottom. The issue isn't that we don't have leadership that would work with "groups" who do similar to what was done in Taiwan the issue is government would want control over the groups to include who was in them. pretty much they would drive the innovation right out the door. then they would turn around and clamp down on anyone who dared do similar work that was not part of the government sanctioned cooperative effort. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/949764249 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/949764249
f430 6y ago
> Would the U.S. ever take a similar approach? Would the US ever admit their exceptionalism is perhaps flawed? Would the Europeans ever admit their exceptionalism led to ignoring Taiwan's alarm bells? I highly doubt it. They are not stupid, they know what's going on in China and they are not telling everybody else because they are worried of losing credibility as leaders. Almost all of our current response assumes the Chinese Communist Party is capable of being transparent and honest. This is what worries me but perhaps the Chinese money has too much sway on YC and Silicon Valley in general to realize you are all being led into a death trap. Pay attention to January 6th very carefully. A few hedge fund managers I speak to tells me they are hedged for a potentially a massive shock. Similarly, the market seems to show that Biden's increase in corporate/wealth tax will become a reality at a time when the market desperately needs lower taxes and less punishment for the wealthy. Some extreme end of the hedge fund managers think that the USD is going to collapse but I believe that this is just another ploy by people who bought Gold years ago are trying to dump their positions on people who buy this shit up. the USD will never be allowed to fail because the rest of the world's currency is backed by it.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Overall yes, but exactly what you mean by "China" here is highly ambiguous.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    To be fair, I would never count Taiwan as China, but I honestly don't know what > They are not stupid, they know what's going on in China and they are not telling everybody else because they are worried of losing credibility as leaders. means. The rest of the post is about Taiwan. Is the insinuation that the politicians know they controlled it better in Taiwan, the PRC, or both? Or is this about stuff in Xinjiang totally separate from quarantining?
  - f430 6y ago
    China as in Communist China
- Ericson2314 6y ago

zbrozek 6y ago

Things like the "where do I get masks" map don't seem antithetical to personal privacy the way a contact tracing tool is. That's pretty low-hanging fruit that we didn't appear to make any attempt to pick.

ISL 6y ago
Volunteer groups like findthemasks did, but in a get-PPE-to-hospitals context. I am unaware of a US implementation of a direct copy of the Taiwanese webapp. In the US through at least May, health authorities were scrambling to get enough PPE to keep the healthcare system functional.
adrianmonk 6y ago
Not to mention the scrapped plan to just simply mail masks to every US household: https://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/white-house-axed-usps-plan-to-send-5-masks-to-every-american-household/ https://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/white-house-axed-usps-p...
awnird 6y ago
I don't think a Masks Map would work in a country where the population believes COVID is fake, and masks are an Islamic plot. Don't you have to address those fundamental issues first?
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Trump and QAnon followers in the US don't just believe COVID is fake, they commonly throw tantrums, threaten, and actively attack, and even murder people wearing masks and asking them to wear masks. QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene Refuses to Wear Mask at Congressional Swearing-In https://news.yahoo.com/qanon-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-greene-175851346.html https://news.yahoo.com/qanon-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-g... St. Louis County man threatens to 'shoot up' church over mask request https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/st-louis-county-man-threatens-to-shoot-up-church-over-mask-request https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/st-louis-county-man-threaten... Family Charged In Security Guard's Death After Mask Dispute https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850618310/family-charged-in-murder-of-security-guard-after-mask-dispute https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... US family 'murdered shop guard for enforcing mask policy' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52540266 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52540266 NYPD: Woman Attacked By Couple After Asking Them To Wear Face Masks In Elevator https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/18/brooklyn-face-mask-attack/ https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/18/brooklyn-face-mask-a... ATTACKED FOR WEARING MY MASK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII1ST3Z2Xk&ab_channel=JonFoor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII1ST3Z2Xk&ab_channel=JonFo... Men attack Target employee after refusing to wear face mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI5Xbw4ec-0&ab_channel=WPLGLocal10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI5Xbw4ec-0&ab_channel=WPLGL... Woman attacked in N.J. Staples after asking customer to wear mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kJWYt_foY&ab_channel=NJ.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kJWYt_foY&ab_channel=NJ.co... There are many other examples.
maxerickson 6y ago
Contact tracing isn't antithetical to personal privacy. I suppose you can say it compromises absolute personal privacy, but so does someone seeing you in a store, so it's not very interesting. Singapore has certainly decided to show how bad it can be, but the root of that is an authoritarian mandate, not the contact tracing itself.
- zbrozek 6y ago
  Good luck convincing many people in the US of the same. I'm certainly not convinced. As you point out, Singapore has already abused the system. If some abuse is technically possible, it's probably already happening. But there's a lot of room outside of "do nothing" and "omnipresent perfect surveillance" to do good things with civic technology, including non-pandemic stuff. Why aren't all public records online and searchable through a single engine? Or all forms editable and submittable? Or budgets and financial reports navigable or comparable? I'd love to be able to know how some random municipality is going to gouge me before I move there. There's loads of room for good solutions for these and tons of other pain points. But as far as I can tell, American government is scared of letting go so the private sector can develop these things. And it's not imaginative or technically competent enough to want or develop this kind of stuff on its own. Or maybe it's not organized or unified enough?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Singapore isn't making some dubious technical violation of their system, they are putting in place a top down mandate requiring it. My point is that it is a consequence of their politics more than of the contact tracing being technically possible.

tt433 6y ago

I'll address why one would listen: to learn about some ways not to be the epicenter of a pandemic ever again.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> not to be the epicenter of a pandemic Are we talking about the US? In what metric is the USA the epicenter? In deaths per capita? In infections per capita? I’m pretty sure US leads in testing per capita. I’m not being snarky, I really don’t know if you are referring to USA, and in what way.
- zaphod4prez 6y ago
  We have a very high number of cases per capita, and while we do perform a lot of tests, it's not like we lead in tests per capita. [Here's a good graph to play around with](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=earliest..latest&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~ARG~BEL~BLR~BOL~BGR~CHN~COL~COM~CUB~DNK~EuropeanUnion~Europe~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MEX~MDA&region=World&testsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=ea...). We are middling to low in terms of tests per confirmed case (aka its not just that we're performing more tests than others), [here's that graph](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-10-15..latest&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~ARG~BEL~BLR~BOL~BGR~CHN~COL~COM~CUB~DNK~EuropeanUnion~Europe~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MEX~MDA&region=World&testsPerCaseMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...). And our case fatality rate is pretty good but not amazing (among first-world countries at least) [graph](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-11-10..2020-12-19&country=USA~GBR~CAN~BRA~AUS~IND~ESP~DEU~FRA~AUT~BEL~BLR~BGR~CHN~COM~CUB~DNK~GEO~GRC~HUN~ISL~IDN~IRN~IRQ~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MNE~MCO~MDA~BHR~NLD~NZL~NOR~PRT~QAT~RUS&region=World&cfrMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...) ([Here's US vs World + regions CFR](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2020-11-10..2020-12-19&country=USA~OWID_WRL~Europe~SouthAmerica~Asia~Africa&region=World&cfrMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=20...)). Note, you have to play around w selecting different countries and dates on that website, I wish they had some kind "select by GDP quartile" or something.

Shivetya 6y ago

read the transcript, link at the bottom. The issue isn't that we don't have leadership that would work with "groups" who do similar to what was done in Taiwan the issue is government would want control over the groups to include who was in them. pretty much they would drive the innovation right out the door. then they would turn around and clamp down on anyone who dared do similar work that was not part of the government sanctioned cooperative effort. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/949764249 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/949764249

f430 6y ago

> Would the U.S. ever take a similar approach? Would the US ever admit their exceptionalism is perhaps flawed? Would the Europeans ever admit their exceptionalism led to ignoring Taiwan's alarm bells? I highly doubt it. They are not stupid, they know what's going on in China and they are not telling everybody else because they are worried of losing credibility as leaders. Almost all of our current response assumes the Chinese Communist Party is capable of being transparent and honest. This is what worries me but perhaps the Chinese money has too much sway on YC and Silicon Valley in general to realize you are all being led into a death trap. Pay attention to January 6th very carefully. A few hedge fund managers I speak to tells me they are hedged for a potentially a massive shock. Similarly, the market seems to show that Biden's increase in corporate/wealth tax will become a reality at a time when the market desperately needs lower taxes and less punishment for the wealthy. Some extreme end of the hedge fund managers think that the USD is going to collapse but I believe that this is just another ploy by people who bought Gold years ago are trying to dump their positions on people who buy this shit up. the USD will never be allowed to fail because the rest of the world's currency is backed by it.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Overall yes, but exactly what you mean by "China" here is highly ambiguous.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  To be fair, I would never count Taiwan as China, but I honestly don't know what > They are not stupid, they know what's going on in China and they are not telling everybody else because they are worried of losing credibility as leaders. means. The rest of the post is about Taiwan. Is the insinuation that the politicians know they controlled it better in Taiwan, the PRC, or both? Or is this about stuff in Xinjiang totally separate from quarantining?
- f430 6y ago
  China as in Communist China
Ericson2314 6y ago