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If so (and I've often wondered the same) then it's quite a statement about how much better we might be able to structure our society to solve collective proble

If so (and I've often wondered the same) then it's quite a statement about how much better we might be able to structure our society to solve collective problems we are totally capable of solving without waiting for a major global disaster.

gnicholas 6y ago
I'm not sure it's an indictment of our pre-2020 society that we didn't try to cure the common cold sooner. Imagine it costs $20 billion to have a 90% shot at coming up with a cure. You might spend a ton of money and come up with a cure, but it's also possible that you'd spend all that money (which could have been spent on more immediate/important issues) and end up with nothing. The situation is different when COVID is a catalyst because we are already spending $19 billion (for example) on a COVID cure, and along the way we have learned that if we spend another $1 billion there's a 90% chance we'll cure the common cold. Having been forced into this situation, it makes sense to go the last mile. That doesn't mean the whole trip would have been clearly worthwhile from the start.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Imagine it costs $20 billion to have a 90% shot at coming up with a cure. You might spend a ton of money and come up with a cure, but it's also possible that you'd spend all that money (which could have been spent on more immediate/important issues) and end up with nothing. On the other hand, it is an indictment when that's a concern, when a private company trivially spends comparable amounts for buying things like Instagram and WhatsApp to push more ads, milk more personal details, and poison more minds with BS and waste more personal time...
- techrat 6y ago
  The 'common cold' is any one of hundreds of different viruses... with many different types of viruses within those hundred+ that are commonly spread. Covid is a specific class of virus (coronavirus) of which there are relatively few variants. If it cost $20 Billion to deal with Covid, you'd have to spend at least 100 times that for each and every individual strain of virus that tends to be viewed as one 'common cold.' Oh, and we've already been trying to cure the 'common cold' for decades. The problem is that there's just too many of 'em.
paxys 6y ago
A lot of stuff magically happens when there is absolutely no other alternative. See – all the companies that weren't bankrupted by employees working from home even though for years executives have said that would be the case. The problem is really of incentives and risk aversion. When there's a tough decision to make without enough clarity on the outcome, people will always prefer the status quo.
tootie 6y ago
When I'm in charge of some software platform that I know has reliability or security problems that no one is willing to prioritize, I have a foolproof strategy. One, write down the list of biggest problems to solve. Two, wait for an inevitable disaster. Three, when leadership is in a panic I present my list and ask for top priority.
- yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
  How do the conversations typically go when asked "did you know this could happen"/"did we see this coming" or has no one bothered to ask that question yet during the RCA process?
  - kaetemi 6y ago
    That's when you show the other hundred lists of solutions to things that could go wrong.
    - yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
      I see. Maybe I'm overthinking it (this happens sometimes, I'm working on it), but waiting around for a security crisis to happen when a solution is in sight, even when facing difficulty prioritizing the work seems dangerous to one's career. But I admit not knowing a lot of things most engineers just assume are a given, lately.
      - eyelidlessness 6y ago
        You’re not overthinking it. Those of us who wait for catastrophe aren’t silent until it happens. We’re just ready and willing to reiterate what’s wrong when it shows up. Everything about that situation is dangerous to our careers: saying something, saying nothing, saying a lot, stomping our feet, saying we told them so. But don’t second guess yourself. You’re expressing exactly the right attitude toward addressing things before they’re an emergency. The people who are using those emergencies to get things done agree, we’re just accustomed to getting shut down unless there’s no other option.
Denvercoder9 6y ago
It's also a question of return on investment (not necessarily in the monetary sense). Due to the high costs of the pandemic, we've also deployed lots of resources to combat it. But that doesn't imply those resources wouldn't create more value for humanity if they weren't redirected. Keep in mind that if the pandemic results in extermination of the common cold, in the alternative world without a pandemic we would most likely also achieve it, just slower. It isn't a matter of now or never.
dylan604 6y ago
Sure, all you need is a man behind a microphone to make a comment like "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of ____". Make it a national interest, and have the "people" behind it. However, I don't think you could unite the "people" behind anything anymore. Half will be for it, the other half will be against it just because the other half want it.
galgalesh 6y ago
The terrifying truth is that we have no idea what the future holds and what the long-term result will be of our actions. Since the future and the result of our actions is uncertain, society is basically executing a search algorithm. This covid crisis has focussed society on finding a local optimum. Though this focussed search will only get us so far. To find a better _global_ optimum, we need a lot of random, seemingly counterproductive search. Don't get me wrong, I strongly dislike a lot about the current state of society. But I think it's irrational to think that we can predict what will be useful in a hundred years.

gnicholas 6y ago

I'm not sure it's an indictment of our pre-2020 society that we didn't try to cure the common cold sooner. Imagine it costs $20 billion to have a 90% shot at coming up with a cure. You might spend a ton of money and come up with a cure, but it's also possible that you'd spend all that money (which could have been spent on more immediate/important issues) and end up with nothing. The situation is different when COVID is a catalyst because we are already spending $19 billion (for example) on a COVID cure, and along the way we have learned that if we spend another $1 billion there's a 90% chance we'll cure the common cold. Having been forced into this situation, it makes sense to go the last mile. That doesn't mean the whole trip would have been clearly worthwhile from the start.

coldtea 6y ago
>Imagine it costs $20 billion to have a 90% shot at coming up with a cure. You might spend a ton of money and come up with a cure, but it's also possible that you'd spend all that money (which could have been spent on more immediate/important issues) and end up with nothing. On the other hand, it is an indictment when that's a concern, when a private company trivially spends comparable amounts for buying things like Instagram and WhatsApp to push more ads, milk more personal details, and poison more minds with BS and waste more personal time...
techrat 6y ago
The 'common cold' is any one of hundreds of different viruses... with many different types of viruses within those hundred+ that are commonly spread. Covid is a specific class of virus (coronavirus) of which there are relatively few variants. If it cost $20 Billion to deal with Covid, you'd have to spend at least 100 times that for each and every individual strain of virus that tends to be viewed as one 'common cold.' Oh, and we've already been trying to cure the 'common cold' for decades. The problem is that there's just too many of 'em.

paxys 6y ago

A lot of stuff magically happens when there is absolutely no other alternative. See – all the companies that weren't bankrupted by employees working from home even though for years executives have said that would be the case. The problem is really of incentives and risk aversion. When there's a tough decision to make without enough clarity on the outcome, people will always prefer the status quo.

tootie 6y ago

When I'm in charge of some software platform that I know has reliability or security problems that no one is willing to prioritize, I have a foolproof strategy. One, write down the list of biggest problems to solve. Two, wait for an inevitable disaster. Three, when leadership is in a panic I present my list and ask for top priority.

yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
How do the conversations typically go when asked "did you know this could happen"/"did we see this coming" or has no one bothered to ask that question yet during the RCA process?
- kaetemi 6y ago
  That's when you show the other hundred lists of solutions to things that could go wrong.
  - yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
    I see. Maybe I'm overthinking it (this happens sometimes, I'm working on it), but waiting around for a security crisis to happen when a solution is in sight, even when facing difficulty prioritizing the work seems dangerous to one's career. But I admit not knowing a lot of things most engineers just assume are a given, lately.
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      You’re not overthinking it. Those of us who wait for catastrophe aren’t silent until it happens. We’re just ready and willing to reiterate what’s wrong when it shows up. Everything about that situation is dangerous to our careers: saying something, saying nothing, saying a lot, stomping our feet, saying we told them so. But don’t second guess yourself. You’re expressing exactly the right attitude toward addressing things before they’re an emergency. The people who are using those emergencies to get things done agree, we’re just accustomed to getting shut down unless there’s no other option.

Denvercoder9 6y ago

It's also a question of return on investment (not necessarily in the monetary sense). Due to the high costs of the pandemic, we've also deployed lots of resources to combat it. But that doesn't imply those resources wouldn't create more value for humanity if they weren't redirected. Keep in mind that if the pandemic results in extermination of the common cold, in the alternative world without a pandemic we would most likely also achieve it, just slower. It isn't a matter of now or never.

dylan604 6y ago

Sure, all you need is a man behind a microphone to make a comment like "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of ____". Make it a national interest, and have the "people" behind it. However, I don't think you could unite the "people" behind anything anymore. Half will be for it, the other half will be against it just because the other half want it.

galgalesh 6y ago

The terrifying truth is that we have no idea what the future holds and what the long-term result will be of our actions. Since the future and the result of our actions is uncertain, society is basically executing a search algorithm. This covid crisis has focussed society on finding a local optimum. Though this focussed search will only get us so far. To find a better _global_ optimum, we need a lot of random, seemingly counterproductive search. Don't get me wrong, I strongly dislike a lot about the current state of society. But I think it's irrational to think that we can predict what will be useful in a hundred years.